The UN Security Council will hold a session on the novel coronavirus on Thursday, marking their first meeting on how the pandemic could affect international security.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will brief the 15 members in a closed-door virtual meeting, the council’s current president, the Dominican Republic, announced on Monday evening, Deutsche press agency (DPA) reported.
UN chief Guterres, who has described the pandemic as the greatest challenge since World War II, recently expressed his displeasure at the slow pace of global action.
Sources told DPA the five permanent council members – the US, China, Russia, Britain, and France – have been planning a meeting of heads of state and government for several weeks now, which they would likely prefer to a full-scale Security Council meeting. This may have led to the delay in scheduling a meeting in the Security Council.
The council has garnered some criticism for so far failing to reach a common position on the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on international security.
Louis Charbonneau of the Human Rights Watch told The New York Times that the already divided security council had “completely disappeared” in the crisis.
