Greece’s permanent representative to the United Nations Evangelos Sekeris on Tuesday praised the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unfcyp)’s “invaluable contribution to maintaining peace and security” on the island.

Speaking at a security council meeting on the subject of the UN’s various peacekeeping missions across the world, Sekeris expressed his gratitude to peacekeepers who serve “under the most difficult conditions”, and also paid tribute to UN peacekeepers who have died in the line of duty.

As such, he said Greece condemns “all attacks and hostile acts against peacekeeping missions”.

On this matter, he stressed the importance of states which host peacekeeping missions and the role of local populations in ensuring the “effective monitoring of ceasefire agreements by peacekeeping operations”.

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He then briefly touched on the matter of the UN interim force in Lebanon (Unifil), saying the force has “played a constructive role in monitoring the cessation of hostilities” following military incursions by the State of Israel into southern Lebanon and a Hezbollah insurgency in the region.

He added that Greece will “continue to participate actively with well-trained and gender-balanced personnel”.

Moving onto the matter of Unficyp, he said the mission is of “particular interest to my country”.

“In this context, Greece reiterates its satisfaction with the recent unanimous adoption of the UN security council resolution renewing Unficyp’s mandate for 12 months. With this resolution, the coundil expressed its strong support for the mission, which plays an invaluable role in maintaining peace and security and in the de-escalation of tensions in the buffer zone in Cyprus,” he said.

He added, “maintaining a secure environment is crucial to supporting [UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’] efforts to ultimately resume negotiations in accordance with the UN parameters and relevant security council resolutions,” thus with the stated aim of a bizonal, bicommunal federal solution to the Cyprus problem.

UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix also spoke at the session, saying “traditional methods of ceasefire monitoring” are no longer sufficient, and thus proposing “direct observation technologies” with the aim of making peacekeeping missions more effective.

“The essence of peacekeeping is impartial observation, detailed reporting, and confidence-building. Technology plays a crucial role, as it enables large-scale monitoring in near real-time, overcoming the limitations of traditional methods,” he said.

He mentioned the creation of the digital “Unite Aware” platform, which allows for live updates on the matter of peacekeeping and the situation on the ground, saying it has “changed the way we monitor” areas such as Cyprus’ buffer zone.

“The Unite Aware platform, for example, has changed the way we monitor critical zones. In Cyprus, the peacekeeping mission has leveraged this tool to monitor the buffer zone and to move to proactive and data-based decision-making,” he said.

He later went on to say that “the success of any ceasefire depends solely on the will of the parties” and that “peacekeeping cannot replace political will”.