PRESS RELEASE : The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines should be treated with utmost seriousness – UK statement at the Security Council [July 2023]
The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 11 July 2023.
Statement by Ambassador James Kariuki at the UN Security Council meeting on the Nord Stream gas pipeline.
Colleagues, the UK condemns acts of sabotage on critical national infrastructure. We should treat the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines with utmost seriousness.
The international community is concerned about this act, and wants clear answers about what happened and who was responsible. As we have said before, the best way to get those answers is to support the impartial investigations of Denmark, Sweden, and Germany and to respect those processes.
We do not believe it is a good use of our time for the Security Council to start to prejudge the outcome of these investigations, dictate how they are conducted, or otherwise undermine them.
We welcome the latest update sent by Germany on behalf of Denmark and Sweden, and their commitment to updating the Security Council. Their letter underlines the complexity of ongoing investigations and underscores that this process will take time. We are confident that when these investigations conclude, their findings will be authoritative.
We, and fellow Council members, should continue to offer full support to these investigations so that we can establish who was responsible for these acts of sabotage.
Finally, we must note Russia’s inconsistent attitude towards civilian infrastructure. They claim outrage here, but are pursuing a systematic campaign to target civilian infrastructure in their war of aggression against Ukraine, killing thousands of civilians in the process. Such hypocrisy should not surprise us, but it makes it hard to take anything the Russians say on this subject at face value.
