GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC -Guyana has welcomed the adoption by the United Nations Security Council of a resolution endorsing President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza.
“As a matter of principle, Guyana voted in favour of the resolution, which will build on the existing ceasefire and advance sustainable peace for the Palestinian people,” President Irfaan Ali said in a statement posted on his Facebook social media page, adding, “We applaud the USA for its leadership in this initiative”.
The Security Council, of which Guyana is a non-permanent member, on Monday approved Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, providing a legal UN mandate for Washington’s vision on how to move beyond the ceasefire and rebuild the Gaza Strip after two years of what the international community has described as a genocide against Palestinians.
The Council’s vote also marked a major diplomatic win for the Trump administration.
Over the past two years, amid ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, the United States faced isolation at the United Nations due to its strong support for Israel.
The US resolution calls for an International Stabilisation Force to enter, demilitarise, and govern Gaza. The proposal also proposes a “Board of Peace” to oversee the peace process, though it does not specify its composition.
The resolution was adopted with 13 votes in favour and none against. Russia and China, both of which could have vetoed it, abstained, apparently influenced by support for the resolution from several Arab and Muslim nations: Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Indonesia, Turkey, and Pakistan, a member of the Council.
Guyana has, throughout the conflict in Gaza, urged a peaceful resolution, and in his address to the UN in September, President Ali said, ‘power must not triumph over principle’.
Ali called for intensified action by the United Nations on critical global issues such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, stating that measures guided by principle must be employed to restore peace.
“The United Nations’ noble mission to maintain international peace and security will ring hollow if it allows power to triumph over principle and might to override right in remaining faithful to its charter. The (UN) must ensure that the survival and progress of humanity are not mortgaged to the ambitions of the powerful,” he said.
President Ali had told the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly that Guyana insists on a two-state solution as the only option to resolve the long-lasting Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He classified the destruction of Gaza not as warfare, but “mass extermination, a systematic slaughter and displacement of Palestinian men, women, and children.
“We must take urgent action to halt the genocide, return the hostages, and accelerate our efforts towards a two-state solution. We urge Qatar, Egypt, and the United States to continue their efforts in this regard,” President Ali said.
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