Dutch Foreign Trade Minister chairs UN Security Council meeting today, PM Rutte later this month

Minister Sigrid Kaag of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation will be leading a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York on Thursday. Prime Minister Mark Rutte will lead a meeting on March 28th.

Thursday is also International Women's Day. In this context, the Netherlands called on the 14 members of the Security Council to include as many female colleagues as possible in their delegations today, the Telegraaf reports. The Netherlands is the president of the Security Council, the UN's most important body, for the entire month of March.

The meeting on Thursday is on the extension of the UN mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA. The Netherlands is in charge of the Afghanistan file during its temporary membership to the Security Council this year.

On March 28th Prime Minister Mark Rutte will chair an open debate on modernizing peace missions, or 'Collective Action to Improve UN Peacekeeping Operations', as it is called on the agenda, according to the government. The day before Rutte will discuss the topic with UN Secretary General António Guterres.

The Netherlands wants UN members to focus more on identifying emerging conflicts and preventing them, than responding to conflicts that already arose with peace missions, according to NOS. The Dutch government also wants large UN countries to make greater efforts to bring war criminals to justice. Currently after a conflict is resolved, there is too little enthusiasm for getting justice for the population of the affected country, according to the government.

A meeting between Rutte and United States president Donald Trump is not on the cards, according to political reporter Jeroen van Dommelen. "Otherwise it would already be announced by the Rijksvoorlichtingdienst [the government information service]. Apparently it was not possible to coordinate the agendas", he said to NOS.