Security Council Targets ISIL Financing

Gravely concerned at the role of external donations in developing and sustaining ISIS and ANF, the Council urges States to take steps to ensure that financial institutions within their territory prevent these groups from accessing the international financial system.

Just after the resolution was adopted, UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, welcomed the measure's explicit condemnation of destruction of cultural heritage and its approval of legally-binding measures to counter illicit trafficking of antiquities and cultural objects from Iraq and Syria.

Calling the resolution a “milestone for enhanced protection of cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria,” she said that pillage and destruction of the countries' culture has reached an unprecedented scale. “It fuels the conflict by providing revenues for armed groups and terrorists. This resolution acknowledges that cultural heritage stands on the front line of conflicts today, and it should be placed on the front line of the security and political response to the crisis,” she added.

Welcoming the explicit role attributed to UNESCO by the Security Council, the Director-General reaffirmed the agency's organization's commitment “to stand by Member States to ensure the full respect of the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property”.

(Source: United Nations News Centre)