On December 15, the delegation of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry led by Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Sergiy Kyslytsya conducted consultations at the US State Department on the subject of work of the UN Security Council.

During the consultations the Ukrainian side informed about its priorities at the UN SC for 2016-2017, in particular, upholding purposes and principles of the  UN Charter, improving transparency and democratic nature of the Council’s work, boosting conflict prevention capacities, strengthening UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding potential. It was also emphasized that countering the Russian aggression against territorial integrity of Ukraine will remain of the important tasks of the Ukrainian delegation to the UN.

Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Bethsheba Crocker noted the positive cooperation between the Ukrainian and US delegations to the UN and informed about the US readiness to establish a similar effective cooperation at the UN Security Council for the next two years.

The two sides exchanges views on a number of issue on the UN SC agenda, in particular, nonproliferation, counterterrorism, situation in the Middle East and in some parts of the African continent, future election of a new UN Secretary General. The sides noted similarity of their approaches and positions on majority of issues that the UN SC considers.

On December 16, Sergiy Kyslytsya had separate meetings with the Permanent Representative of France to the UN F.Dellatre and the Permanent Representative of Japan to the UN M.Yoshikawa. During the meetings the participants discussed the current work of the UN SC and in the context of Ukraine’s membership in the UN SC in 2016-2017 agreed to deepen cooperation of the Ukrainian mission with the missions of France and Japan.