Guyana, Leading the UN Security Council, Is Not Giving Up on a Ceasefire in Gaza

PassBlue LInk

The United Nations Security Council’s continuing failure to agree on a ceasefire in Gaza is troubling many members, including Guyana, which assumes the rotating presidency of the Council on Feb. 1. Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana’s permanent representative to the UN, told PassBlue that her country would continue to lead the conversation to get more humanitarian support to the people of Gaza.

“Several members of the Council continue to call for a ceasefire, but we have at least one Council member that is not at that point as yet,” Rodrigues-Birkett said. “I can tell you that Guyana will continue to call for this as it is with the other members. We have to go back to the mandate of the Council in the maintenance of peace and security around the world.”

The United States, a permanent Council member, is the only country in the body still resisting calls for a ceasefire. Jeffrey Laurenti, an international affairs analyst formerly with the Century Foundation think tank and a UN expert, told PassBlue that Guyana’s effort as rotating president would achieve nothing until President Joe Biden is ready to push “a ceasefire down Israel’s throat.”