New York, February 18(Darfur24)
The United Nations Security Council UNSC on Monday extended the mandate of the panel of experts assisting the Sudan Sanctions Committee for another year, until March 12, 2026, by a majority of 13 votes, with Russia and China abstaining.
The African Group and China criticized the United States, the penholder, for not cooperating and taking other opinions into account. China pointed to the conflict between the expiration of the sanctions resolution under Resolution 1591 in September and the extension of the panel of experts’ mandate until March of next year, and saw that the extension should be for six months, but this was not taken into account.
The panel of experts assists the Sudan Sanctions Committee established under Resolution 1591, and the duration of the mandate was the most difficult aspect of the negotiations.
The United States drafted the resolution in blue, which led to difficulty in negotiations on it. The resolution requests the team to submit to the Committee an interim report on its activities by 12 August 2025 and a final report outlining its findings and recommendations by 13 January 2026.
The Algeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Guinea group tried to remove most of the preambular and operative paragraphs of the draft resolution, in line with Sudan’s request to keep the text short and concise.
While the United States apparently wanted to retain the previous year’s text with only some technical amendments, it accepted the group members’ request to reach a compromise.