News

USIS Washington 
File

30 October 1998

TEXT: STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT OF UNSC ON LIBYA SANCTIONS OCT. 29

(UN Security Council keeps sanctions on Libya re PanAm 103) (400)



United Nations -- The President of the UN Security Council told
reporters late October 29 that members of the Council had "reiterated
their call to Libya to comply with resolution 1192 and recalled that
sanctions would be suspended as soon as the Secretary-General reports
that the terms of 1192, paragraph eight, have been met.


"Council members," he said, "noted that the 10th anniversary of the
Lockerbie tragedy falls on 21 December of this year and they agreed
that this underlined the need to resolve this issue in line with
resolution 1192 as soon as possible."


Following is the UNSC statement:



(begin text)



Council business this morning began with Western Sahara where we made
good progress on agreeing a text of a resolution extending the mandate
of MINURSO. That resolution will go into blue under presidential
sponsorship now and we will meet tomorrow morning to adopt that
resolution.


We then moved on to the Libya sanctions review and the Council has
asked me to make the following statement:


Council members reviewed sanctions pursuant to para. 13 of resolution
748 and in the light of the adoption of resolution 1192, in August.


Council members welcomed the fact that clarifications concerning the
procedures for the trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law and
with Scottish judges were being provided to the Libyan authorities
through the Secretary-General's office. Council members were
encouraged by the relatively positive trend of those developments.


Members reiterated their call to Libya to comply with resolution 1192
and recalled that sanctions would be suspended as soon as the
Secretary-General reports that the terms of 1192, paragraph eight,
have been met.


We heard a report from the Chairman of the Sanctions Committee on
compliance with the sanctions regime and on exemptions, including
efforts by the Sanctions Committee to ameliorate the position on Haj
flights.


Council members noted that the 10th anniversary of the Lockerbie
tragedy falls on 21 December of this year and they agreed that this
underlined the need to resolve this issue in line with resolution 1192
as soon as possible. And so they will follow developments very
closely.


That's the statement on the Libya sanctions review.



29 October 1998



(end text)