Russia Raps UN Role in Ivory Coast
Russia Raps UN Role in Ivory Coast
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday that UN peacekeepers had taken sides in the conflict in Ivory Coast and called it a “very dangerous tendency.”
Medvedev spoke after a bloody power struggle in Ivory Coast ended when President Alassane Ouattara’s troops captured his rival Laurent Gbagbo with the help of French forces. A UN resolution on the Ivory Coast “speaks of the use of UN forces, but not in order to support one of the sides in the conflict,” Medvedev told reporters in China after a summit of emerging market nations. “The United Nations cannot take sides, but that is de-facto what happened,” he said. “We have serious questions for the UN leadership. I think this is a very dangerous tendency,” said Medvedev, whose nation has veto power as a permanent UN Security Council member.
