UN to choke off Daesh cash flow
Security Council plans to cut off earnings from oil and antiquities smuggling
The United States and Russia are drafting UN resolutions aimed at ramping up global efforts to choke off Daesh’s sources of financing, the envoys said on Tuesday.
The proposed new Security Council measure would build on a resolution adopted in February that sought to cut off millions of dollars in earnings from Daesh smuggling of oil and antiquities.
US Ambassador Samantha Power told reporters that the draft resolution “will consolidate and streamline the council’s recent efforts on [Daesh] financing” and introduce “new steps to make the sanctions more effective.”
The measure could be adopted around December 17 during this month’s US presidency of the Security Council.
Russian Ambassador Vit-aly Churkin separately told reporters that he was also discussing a draft measure to “tighten up” the anti-Daesh financing measures.
Power said the United States would be looking at the Russian proposals to “see how these efforts come together,” but it was unclear if there would be agreement on a single draft. There is a “shared objective,” Power said.
‘Industrial scale’
President Vladimir Putin on Monday accused Turkey of shooting down a Russian warplane to protect Daesh oil routes across the border from Syria to Turkey.
Putin said oil produced in Daesh-controlled areas were being transported by tankers to Turkey “on an industrial scale.” A report by the UN’s Al Qaida monitoring team released in November last year estimated that the militants earn $850,000 to $1.65 million per day from oil sales.
US officials, however, now say that oil is no longer the main source of revenue for Daesh. The resolution adopted in February calls for sanctions against individuals and entities that trade in oil with Daesh and urges all 193 UN countries to take “appropriate steps” to prevent the trade in cultural property from Iraq and Syria.