Flanagan urges UN to unite to combat religious extremism

Barbaric violence perpetrated by Islamic State militants in the Middle East “harks back to a mentality and a culture that we thought we had seen the last of a millennium ago”, Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan has told the United Nations general assembly.

Speaking to the UN in New York on his first visit in the foreign affairs portfolio, Mr Flanagan told the assembly of the importance of “dialogue and compromise as the solution to intractable conflicts”, reflecting what he said was the ethos of Ireland’s foreign policy.

He urged the UN to unite to combat religious extremism, a recurring theme at the assembly this year as world leaders have voiced concern about the radical Muslim group, formerly known as Isis, and its rapid seizure of large swathes of Syria and northern Iraq, which has led the United States to escalate air strikes against them.

“The bloodlust and inhumanity which Isis is displaying in Syria and Iraq has shocked and appalled all civilised people,” Mr Flanagan told the 69th session of the UN general assembly.

“The destruction and displacement of the ancient Christian communities of northern Iraq has been harrowing to witness.”

He referred to the group’s “gratuitous and almost barbaric casual approach to the most gruesome form of murder - the beheading” as well as the “barbaric sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls, the immoral corruption of children by place military weapons in their hands, the scapegoating of people based on their ethnicity or religion - whether Christian, Yazidi, Kurd, Sunni, Shia or Jew”.

“All of this, taken together, hards back to a mentality and a culture that we thought we had seen the last of a millennium ago,” he said.

The rise of IS, the continued activities of al-Qaeda and the growing strength of Boko Haram, the extremist militant group in Africa, “make clear that there is no room for complacency among the international community when it comes to the growth of extremism”, he said.

“We must unite and mobilise to confront this threat and we must do so with a real sense of urgency.”

He condemned the persecution of Christians and other minorities in the Middle East and the recent rise of anti-Semitic attacks, particularly in European countries.

Attacks on vulnerable minorities are “often among the first warning signs that a far more serious conflict is brewing”, he said.

Mr Flanagan described the conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatist rebels as the “most dangerous political crisis to occur in Europe for several decades”, saying that it had “profound implications” for the viability and future of an international system that upholds the rule of law.

“There is an urgent need for Russia to demonstrate, by deeds and not just words, a genuine commitment to achieving a rapid de-escalation of the situation in eastern Ukraine.”

Mr Flanagan paid tribute to the 370 Irish men and women of the Defence Forces who are seeing on UN peacekeeping duties, mostly in the Middle East, and warned that the peacekeepers were “increasingly deployed in situations where there is no peace to keep”.

“They face a range of new hazards and demands, including increased intra-state conflicts and the recent growth in transnational extremism,” he told the assembly.

“It is incumbent on all of us - troop contributors, regional organisations and the UN - to work together to ensure that peacekeeping missions can deliver their mandates in a secure and effective manner.”

He welcomed the review of UN peacekeeping, which has assured the Government to continue the deployment of Irish troops in the Golan Heights, the separated area between Israel and Syria that has been increasingly drawn into tensions in war-torn Syria.