UN council backs Guterres after Israel deems him ‘persona non grata’

AFP | New York

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The United Nations Security Council offered its full support to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, after Israel said he was “persona non grata” for not quickly condemning Iran’s ballistic missile barrage.

Without naming Israel, the council’s five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- and the 10 non-permanent members “underscored the need for all member states to have a productive and effective relationship with the secretary-general.”

The Council also asked member states to “refrain from any actions that undermine his work and that of his office.”

“Any decision not to engage with the UN secretary-general or the United Nations is counterproductive, especially in the context of escalating tensions in the Middle East,” it said.

Relations between the UN and Israel -- a state created by a UN resolution in 1947 -- have been difficult since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, which sparked the war in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Guterres was declared persona non grata by Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who called him an “anti-Israel secretary-general who lends support to terrorists, rapists, and murderers.”

“Anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel does not deserve to step foot on Israeli soil,” Katz said in a statement.

That same day, at a tense emergency Security Council meeting on swirling tensions in the Middle East, with both the UN envoys from Iran and Israel in the rooms, Guterres said: “I again strongly condemn yesterday’s massive missile attacks by Iran on Israel.”

But he did call on all sides to end the “sickening cycle of escalation” of violence, warning it was leading the region “straight over the cliff.”