UN chief urges Security Council to reset peacekeeping operations

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday urged the Security Council to overhaul the way UN peacekeeping operations are deployed and supported, calling for a renewed focus on political solutions, stronger partnerships with host countries and more adaptable missions.

Addressing a Security Council debate in New York on UN peacekeeping operations, Guterres said the changing nature of armed conflicts had exposed limitations in the way peacekeeping mandates are designed and implemented.

"For nearly 10 years, I have seen what peacekeepers can do when the Security Council stands behind them-and what they endure when it is divided," Guterres said.

"We do not lack tools. What we lack, all too often, is the political space to use them," he added.

Guterres said the need to adapt peace operations is at the center of a review requested under the Pact for the Future, arguing that peacekeeping must respond to a significantly different international security environment.

"Peacekeeping is, above all, a political instrument," he said. "It is deployed to support political solutions-never as a substitute for them."

He said that for decades, UN peacekeepers were primarily deployed to help parties to civil wars implement comprehensive peace agreements.

But such agreements are now rarer, harder to reach and more fragile, according to the secretary-general.

"Most of our missions now operate where peace remains elusive," he said.

Guterres said the environment in which peacekeepers operate has changed rapidly.

"Peacekeepers are attacked. Civilians are targeted. International law is violated with a mounting sense of impunity," he said.