Russian Federation proposal aimed at cutting ISIS funding approved by UN Security Council

Finance ministers of the United Nations Security Council have unanimously adopted a resolution created to cut off financing to the self-styled Islamic State.

The draft Security Council resolution, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press news agency, would rename the committee monitoring sanctions against al-Qaeda as “the ISIL and al-Qaeda sanctions committee”.

It stressed that already existing resolutions mandating States to ensure that financial assets are not transferred to terrorists by persons within their territory “shall also apply to the payment of ransoms to individuals, groups, undertakings or entities on the ISIL [Da’esh] and Al-Qaeda Sanctions List regardless of how or by whom the ransom is paid”.

Media captionWho is buying oil from Islamic State?

“If we can get at (Islamic State’s) wallet and its financial coffers in an intensified and even more aggressive way, that’s going to have a material effect on their ability to prosecute war”, said U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power.

US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, who will chair Thursday’s meeting, which is the first ever such UN Security Council gathering of finance ministers, has said that cutting ISIL off from the global financial system is “critical to effectively combating this violent terrorist group”.

The group gets much of its financing – estimates of $500 million so far – from black market oil sales.

The next test of that cooperation will come tomorrow, when diplomats from more than a dozen countries are to gather in NY with the aim of getting the Syrian government and opposition groups to agree to a cease-fire and a transitional government in January.

Lew said it generates funds from economic activity and the resources in territory under its control and its financing “has evolved from seizing territory and looting bank vaults to leveraging more renewable revenue streams”.

“While these attacks are having a real and growing impact, the United States and worldwide community must also work with countries bordering Iraq and Syria to enhance border security to help stop illicit cross-border flows”, the USA treasury secretary said.

It says that governments must prevent its citizens from funding or providing services to “terrorist organizations or individual terrorists for any objective, including but not limited to recruitment, training, or travel, even in the absence of a link to a specific terrorist act”.

“We are in a new phase of terrorism, including lone actors and small group of terrorists, like those in San Bernardino”, Obama said.

Russia’s Churkin said Islamic State also made $250 million a year from the sale of phosphates, $200 million from barley and rye and $100 million from cement.

What vexes the United States and Russian Federation is not just their own differences about the future of Syria, but the rival agendas of their allies in the region, namely Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran.

“We see Syria fundamentally very similarly, we want the same outcomes, we see the same dangers, we understand the same challenges”, Kerry said.