Christina Markus Lassen (Permanent Representative of Denmark to the United Nations/Security Council President) on the programme of work of the Security Council in August - Press Conference

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to this press briefing of the first working day of Denmark's presidency of the Security Council for the month of August. My name is Emil Poulsen. I'm the spokesperson of the Permanent Mission of Denmark to the United Nations. And let me also start by paying tribute to the Permanent Mission of the Democratic Republic of Congo for their stewardship of the work of the Security Council for July. It's an honour for Denmark to assume the responsibility for August. I'm especially delighted to welcome Her Excellency Ambassador Christina Markus-Lassen, our Permanent Representative to the United Nations, who shortly will present the programme of work of the Security Council for August. She's accompanied by our Political Coordinator, Minister-Counsellor Mr. Troels Rappo Bey. Afterwards, we will have a short Q&A session I would kindly plea that you introduce yourself and also indicate which media you represent. I intend to take it in batches of 3 questions at a time. So without further ado, Madam Ambassador, you have the floor.

Thank you so much, Emile, and good afternoon, everyone. Very nice to see you all. I realize this is in the middle of the holiday season and also the weather was awful today, so really thank you for joining us today and thank you for your interest and your continued coverage of of the Council's work. It's very much appreciated. I think you will all agree that Denmark assumes the presidency of the Security Council at a time of deep uncertainty for international peace and security. We see conflicts escalating. We see humanitarian suffering is increasing. Geopolitical tensions are rising. And political solutions seem out of reach in many regions of the world. And on many of the topics that we also discuss in the Council, whether it's Ukraine, Sudan, the Middle East and the Gulf, we do fear further escalation also in light of what we've seen over recent weeks. So any of these topics could, of course, end up on the Council's agenda in the coming months. But I'll start by the programme of work that I think you have also received and which was adopted, of course, right now this morning. You will see that we have not overburdened the agenda. We all say this at presidencies, but we also know that there will be, unfortunately, a lot of extraordinary meetings on the Council agenda, so we are happy to leave space for that, and in particular in the light of some of the ongoing crises that I just mentioned. But we already do have, of course, mandated meetings this month of August on South Sudan, Yemen, Libya, the occupied Palestinian territories, DPRK, Syria, and the fight against terrorism. And through these meetings, as well as the additional meetings that may be added to the calendar, our programme would really span across critical regional and thematic files, and all, of course, in support of our goal to maintain international peace and security. We believe— I hope you agree with us— that Denmark has been a consistent member throughout our term. Consistent in our demands for international law, including international humanitarian law, to be upheld without exception, and consistent in upholding our priorities on women, peace, and security, and climate, peace, and security. And you will also see focus on these issues during our presidency month. So this month, the way we have shaped the program, we hope that it will very much reflect the key issues we've sought to progress as an elected member. It's been a little bit more than a year and a half now. So as our membership throughout our term. So as has also been the case for many months now, you can expect us to seek to bring attention to Sudan and Ukraine, where Council engagement, we believe, remains especially urgent. In Sudan, we'll continue to press for stronger protection of civilians, greater humanitarian access, and renewed efforts towards ending the conflict. And on Ukraine, we'll maintain our call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, as well as our constant support for comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in line with the UN Charter, while keeping the consequences of Russia's aggression firmly on the Council's agenda. And I realize you've heard me say this before, but I wanted to still restate it. Across our agenda, we see that where conflicts erupt, hunger often follows. And that's really the background for the so-called signature event that we are hosting under the leadership of the Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs on the 25th of August. It's going to be a high-level open debate on conflict and hunger, an issue again that we have consistently championed. And we want to use this debate to see how the Council can better implement Resolution 2417, which is exactly about this issue. It's a topic that we mean— that we believe is only underscored by the current developments in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as several other of the conflicts— ongoing conflicts we see out there. We have one more open debate, and that's the annual debate on working methods. That's going to be on the 19th of August. That's also, we believe, advancing our longstanding commitment to a more effective, transparent, and inclusive Security Council. So that's really a topic that we believe is very important and also where we want the whole engagement, hopefully, of the wider membership of the UN. Then there are several known unknowns, if I may use that expression, that we can expect, that we can't confirm yet, but we expect this month also. We hope to very soon receive the Secretary-General's review of the future of peace operations. It's been in the works for a while, as you know. So if and when we receive that, we expect together with Pakistan, who's our co-partner in the DUO, Cooperation on the Future of Peace Operations. We hope for Council consultations, at least a discussion of that, to address and assess the report. That's going to be very important. It's something that's been very much in focus also in our membership. So looking forward to that also. I think another thing I didn't mention yet, but which we also would be watching very closely, the situation in the West Bank, but also in Gaza. On the latter, we hope to see, of course, progress on the implementation of 2803, but also on the West Bank. We've seen a lot of concerning incidents over the last few weeks and months, so we could also expect that those two issues might be on the agenda. The same goes for the situation in Lebanon. The post-unifil arrangements will have to be decided, as you know, by the council members. We have been presented by some options by the Secretary General. Right now, we are finding waiting for the best time to. Actually discuss that future configuration. Then August is also a month— this is also not on the programme— it's a very rather grim anniversary, we believe, of the 5 years since Taliban's seizure of power in Afghanistan. And we'll also find some way to mark that occasion so we all have some focus on that and the many consequences it's had for the population, in particular for women and girls. And then finally, I know you're all waiting for it. We do hope, of course, to make progress on the selection of the new Secretary-General. This is arguably one of the most important decisions of the Council this year. We obviously cannot comment on the results, if you wanted to ask me that, of the straw polls last week, but we do expect to conduct another round of straw polls later this month. We are, as presidency right now, aiming for and hoping to schedule on the 21st of August, but obviously, as you can appreciate, there's a lot of bits and pieces out there that are variable, that are moving, so— but that's at least our aim for now with that date, and we assume that there will certainly be one straw poll during our presidency. We see this as a joint process under the Charter, so this will all be done in cooperation with the General Assembly also. As you know, there needs to be also a hearing, an interactive dialogue with the General Assembly. So these are some— I feel that was quite a lot already. These are some of the issues on our mind, our agenda for the coming month. They represent the ones I've mentioned, areas also where we believe that the Council should do more and should act, and at the very least they direct our continued attention. So this is something I can promise you for this month as presidency. continue to work for solutions and also remaining very strong in our principles. That's it for me now, but I will look forward to receiving your questions and comments.

Thanks a lot, Ambassador. And as per tradition, I think we will start with United Nations Correspondents Association, and then I'll take 2 more questions in the first round. Over to you, Edith.

Thank you very much, Madam Ambassador, on behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association. Correspondents Association for doing this briefing. As you know, my name is Edith Lederer from the Associated Press, and we all hope that you will come to the stakeout often and tell us what the council has been up to. Um, a couple of follow-up questions. Do you expect the Security Council to take any action on either Gaza or Iran or both during your presidency? And I know you said that the second straw poll will be in late August. Is there a date that—

Yes.

We might— I know you said the 21st. Is that pretty certain?

Okay, thanks a lot. That was almost 3 questions in one question, but that's fine. Okay, we will take one more, I think.

We didn't expect less. Thank you, Emile. Good luck, Madam Ambassador, for this month of presidency. Just a quick follow-up about the Stropol. Can you give us at least a kind of insight? Is there some discussions on margin of the Stropol plan between members? What's the atmosphere? Are you excited? Is there some excitement or is there some huge division? I mean, give us a little bit of the color behind the scenes, please. I like that question.

I think we can take one more. Yeah, let's have one more in the first go. In the middle there, pass blue.

Thank you. This is about your signature event. Wondering if you could talk more on what you aim to achieve with the theme you've intended— you want to focus on. Usually when countries hold this debate at the end of the day, just 3 hours of conversations. What exactly do you want to achieve with this? Secondly, still on that, the Secretary-General mulled over some sort of mechanism that would aid food, fertilizers, energy supply, and other commercial goods through this straight up almost. Did you— are you in conversation with the Secretariat about this? Would this signature event have anything in moving this forward? Just to talk about that initiative of Secretary-General and if you're working with him too.

Thank you. Thanks a lot, everyone. Excellent. And also thanks for not posing me easy questions. So thank you, Edith. And coming to the stakeout, I would love to do it as much as I can. You know, we should preferably agree before I do that, so that's always a little bit the challenge here. On Iran and Gaza, as I said, I expect both of them to be on the Council agenda. If I expect action, you know the UN as well as me, it might be difficult to actually agree on action, but we still believe it's extremely important to have these issues and discuss them on the Council agenda and to see what we can do. I think on Gaza, we were obviously on the Council. We adopted Resolution 2803, which also established the Board of Peace. 8 months have passed since then. So we were happy to hear last week that there seems to be now an agreement on the disarmament of Hamas and the withdrawal of Israel from Gaza. But at the same time, we also heard about new attacks and casualties, it seemed, yesterday in Gaza. So it certainly one of these issues where I think we need to continue asking questions, also in particular on the entry of humanitarian— on the humanitarian access, one area where we've had many concerns. So I think you will see that we also have a scheduled meeting, as you know, by the end of the month, and certainly that will be one of our issues of focus, and whatever Council action we could work for on that, we will of course be very interested to see what the options are. On Iran, again, It's, it's moving back and forth. As you can tell, we were very concerned with the escalations again these last couple of weeks. Now we've heard over the weekend that there are some talks ongoing. This is just what I have from the press, but certainly also between countries in the region, which of course, since we from the beginning have been calling for de-escalation and resumption of diplomatic talks, that's exactly where we think this conflict should be handled. So Hopefully we see something there, and if necessary, and if somebody raises from the council membership, we will certainly have that on the council agenda. And I think that's quite possible also, what I hear from colleagues. So the straw poll, yes, we are aiming— we have hoping for the 21st of August. That will be 3 weeks after the first 3 full working weeks. So that would be, we think, a good timing, but it could of course be affected by by various— there's lots, as I was saying, moving factors here, but, but that's what we were, um, we were hoping for. And, and you were asking if I can say a little bit about the discussions and excitement. I mean, we're very excited about it, and, um, we think it's historic to be part of this process. So yes, I can say, and I think that's all I can say unfortunately, and I hope you respect that confidentiality in that room. There was, of course, a lot of suspense and excitement. We know that this is a very important issue that we're working on. And very important to try to get the council to some kind—not some kind—but to agreement as it's managed after all the past nine times. So, so this is I think the spirit that we all go into these discussions with. And then I hope that you will respect that I cannot really say we actually—we were one of the members, as you might know, who who argued in favor when we were discussing the modalities of these elections for more. Transparency and for actually releasing the polls. We agreed not to do so, so now when we agreed on that, we're very strict on that. So we find it unfortunate, as many other council members, that the results were leaked because now we had agreed not to. But that's the way we look at it, so we respect that. And I cannot say so much more about that. On the question from PassBlue, I'm not sure I got the first point, but certainly on the On the mechanism that the Secretariat is working on, and I believe it's the ED of UNOPS who's working on this also with Jean Arnault, we have been in contact with them throughout the process. I think there— this mechanism is also very dependent on what's happening in the other tracks, so to say, negotiating tracks, what actually the parties can agree to. But we certainly think— we find it extremely problematic. We are a big maritime power. We find the whole point of the Strait of Hormuz not allowing for freedom of navigation being extremely problematic. And of course, the whole— the consequences exactly for food security and some of these other products that you were mentioning is extremely challenging. So we would support the Secretary's efforts. Again, we're waiting for them to be more precise. But as I understand, it's inspired by the Black Sea Grain Initiative that we also saw with the Black Sea and and Hormuz?

Yeah, the first one was to talk more about your signature event, the importance of it, what you want to achieve with it. Thank you.

Yeah, I think it's— for us, it is extremely important to shed some light on both how many of these major conflicts, and it's basically all the ones I was talking about right now, Strait of Hormuz, Ukraine, even what's happened in the Palestinian territories, are affecting food security, but at the same time, of course, also sometimes conflicts over food resources will also have the opposite effect or actually spur conflicts. So that's why we want to see those links. Sudan is another example where we keep seeing very concerning— whenever we have the IPC reports, very concerning numbers in terms of food insecurity. Same with the recent numbers in Gaza, in spite of being almost more than 8 months actually since 2803, we still see some extremely concerning— it's been improving a little bit but still very concerning. So we want to really see the link here between conflicts and hunger and see again, have council— not just council members but, um, but the entire UN membership having a chance to discuss this. We have some interesting briefers including of course our Secretary-General, and then we'll have, as I mentioned, the, the day Danish Foreign Minister leading that particular meeting, because we do believe it's important to highlight we have a special role in the Council as co-focal point together with Bahrain on conflict and hunger, which means that we have taken on ourselves a special responsibility to highlight the connections between conflict and hunger in the conflicts that we are working on in the Council.

Okay, thanks a lot, Ambassador. We'll start the next round in batches of 3 And again, as I said before, kindly indicate which media you're from because I'm not sure I know all of you. The gentleman there in the middle, please go ahead. Yes.

Oh, thank you so much. My name is Abdul Hamid Sayam from the Arabic daily Al-Quds al-Arabi. Madam Ambassador, don't you see that the Palestinian people had suffered too much during the last 79 years? The partition plan which gave legitimacy to the establishment of an Israeli state also gave legitimacy to establishing a Palestinian state. One was immediately— one year, less than one year was established, and this second one is still waiting. Don't you think that the international community has failed the Palestinians? And they keep talking about human rights and about this, but— And a related question, if you allow me. Everyone criticizes Israel He's been attacked from Vanessa Fraser, Children in Armed Conflict, to Karim Khan who was fired, to Pramila Patan who talked about sexual violation of Palestinians, to Francesca Albanese. Do you see there is a major superpower standing for every UN official? who criticizes Israel to stigmatize that person so to scare others. Thank you very much.

Okay.

And Lazzarini, of course, yes, yeah.

Okay, thanks a lot. I'll take 2 more, but basically questions on 2-state solution and on some of the special rapporteurs. So the next one is the gentleman there. Yeah, please.

Thank you, Madam Ambassador. My name is Volodymyr Ichenko, National News Agency of Ukraine, Ukrinform. You've identified Ukraine as one of the priorities of your Security Council presidency this month. You also said that you would call for an immediate ceasefire. Could you elaborate on that? In your view, what are the most urgent aspects of Russia's war against Ukraine that the Security Council should address during Denmark's presidency?

Thank you.

Okay, thanks a lot. And one more, Ifrim from Arab News.

Thank you so much, Amel. Thanks, Ambassador. A question on Lebanon. Have there been any serious conversations in the Council around the Secretary-General's proposal for a post-UNIFIL presence in the country? If so, what are Council members leaning to of the 3 options? What are they leaning to the most? And if not, why have there not been any conversations. Thank you.

Okay, over to you, Ambassador.

Thanks a lot. I think we're getting around the world here. I think you can always talk about suffering, and I think this is a conflict— it's a larger philosophical issue. We have been talking about this conflict for many, many decades, and there's been suffering on both sides. Obviously, we also saw a lot of suffering on October 7th, but we've seen some immense suffering in Gaza in particular. After October 7th and also what's happening in the West Bank, which is exactly why we would like to keep having these conflicts on the agenda for the Council to be— to discuss it but also to keep reminding the whole world that these things are going on and we need to not forget about it. I think it's important what we had— what happened last year also with the New York Declaration. Where a large share— was it 149, 150 countries supported that French-Saudi-led initiative, including Denmark, of course— and where we also again put up some very clear principles and that we all want to see a 2-state solution coming out of all of these processes, which obviously have been made much more difficult by the recent conflicts over the last few years. But that's still our aim. That's still what we're working for. That's also what we're working for as Denmark. And we have also said, as many others, there's been some recognition already of Palestinian state. We've said we're ready to recognize once a number of conditions are fulfilled. Having said that, under various— you are mentioning various UN officials. Of course, some of them, there's a little bit of difference between some of these officials. Some are sort of UN officials speaking for the UN. Some are more independent rapporteurs who speak also in their personal capacity. But I would certainly say whenever it comes to the recent report we had on children in armed conflict by Vanessa Fraser or on sexual conflict-related sexual violence by SRSG Promila Patan, you would see in the council where we had these meetings a very strong support to the mandate of those— they're not rapporteurs, but those SRSGs— to the mandates of looking into these for all the various situations that they look at. And also in particular these recommendations that they actually come out with and their dialogue with the countries involved. So that's something where we have completely supported the officials in question, and you will see that also from our speeches in the Council. And of course, what other countries choose to do, there will always— we have seen on all the various issues that are mentioned in their various reports that there will be some countries not happy about the conclusions. But the way we see it is that we, um, we, we trust their methodology for doing it for both these 2 reports, and that's why we have to just take, um, basically acknowledge their, their conclusions and work on that basis. Uh, Ukraine, um, again, you would have probably followed that since we entered on the Council a little more than a year and a half ago, it has been one of our main concerns. Not surprisingly, we're in the neighborhood. We're extremely concerned about this conflict, which has now been going on for more than 4 and a half years. It's something that we think it's important that the Council keeps discussing again to not have any conflicts become business as usual, but that for everyone to see that this is a horrible conflict taking place here. We've been really concerned the last 2, 3 months. I think we've been in the Council almost every week talking about the escalations in the attacks, which is why we've had several meetings, because the attacks just keep— the Russian attacks on Ukraine keep getting more and more brutal and more and more important in numbers, so to say. So we have, you know it much better than me, but almost every single night we have major attacks on Kyiv and other bigger cities of Ukraine. And of course, increasing number of civilian casualties. I believe that we heard that May and June were already the highest in numbers of civilian casualties so far in the conflict. And we haven't seen the final numbers for July yet, but I fear that that would be again beating that horrible record. So we have been pleading for more than a year for an immediate ceasefire, which Ukraine, of course, has been offering also for more than a year. It's quite clear to us that Russia does not want the ceasefire. So that's another reason for us to have meetings in the Council, so the rest of the Council members who have all at some point expressed the same wish get a chance to do that. And again, I've said this many times in the Council, but a just and lasting peace has to, of course, be in accordance with the basic principles of the Charter and respecting every state's sovereignty and territorial integrity. So we believe that a peace has to be comprehensive to be a lasting peace, and that would be the principle we keep working from and also the reason what we try to do this month in the Council. Lebanon, serious conversations. Yes, we all— our conversations are always serious in the Council, but of course we got the report from the Secretary-General about the post-UNIFIL options the 1st of June. This has been in a time where you can say that already the months where this report was being prepared, there was a lot going on, a little bit changing the conditions on the ground. So I think that's why it took a little bit before we got the report, but that's also why it's taking a while now to discuss it. We did have a first round of closed consultations, and they were serious, in the Council last month. We are hoping to continue that conversation this month, but we also have to acknowledge that there is still a new situation on the ground, also quite new compared to when we We made the decision last August, one year ago, to terminate UNIFIL, and we also have to acknowledge that there are conversations now directly, which is a positive thing, the trilateral talks between Israel and Lebanon, and we had President Aoun just in the White House recently. So we need to make sure that everybody knows what's going on and everybody's on board. So I think that's the most I can say now. We very much hope, because The end of the year is not so far from now, so we think the Council should discuss it, but we also have to, of course, take all this into consideration.

Thanks a lot, Ambassador. We take another round. The gentleman there to the left.

Thank you so much, Madam President. I have 2 questions, one on Syria. What are your thoughts on the political transition there, and does Denmark see any role for the Council play in verifying, first, the integration agreement between the Syrian Democratic Forces and Damascus, and secondly, the Presidential Decree Number 13 on Kurdish citizenship and language rights? And my second question is on the Kurdistan region in Iraq. The U.S. troops have reportedly withdrawn their defense systems from the region as the They're going to withdraw their troops in September. And the Kurdish region says Baghdad is not doing enough to protect them from drone attacks and missiles. I wonder if there is something that the Council can do to protect civilians in regions like Kurdistan that has a unique— some kind of unique situation where the central government might not be doing enough to protect people there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Which media are you? Sorry.

Sorry, I am Namo Abdullah with Rudaw Media Network. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot. We'll take one more at least. Anyone else?

That's it?

If you give me another question, just—

I'll think about it. If you tell me what it is, then I'll think about it.

Just a quick follow-up on the next straw poll. Do you expect—

I was sure it was going to come.

Do you expect the Council members to do color-coded voting in this round?

All right. Well, first to Syria and the Syrian transition. And again, we never want to be too optimistic in this business. And Syria has been through a horrible 14 years of internal civil war, basically started as an uprising, but that's what it developed into. And I have to say, we've been quite positively, cautiously, but positively surprised by the developments in Syria since the 8th of December, 2024. We went as a Council to Syria to actually show our support in the sense that I think Syria is one of the topics on the Council agenda after the fall of the Assad regime. Thank you. That there is relative agreement. I say relative because we never agree on everything on the council, and that's how it is, on, on trying to support this new transitional government and the new, new Syria, as they call it, but also, of course, keeping them up to their own principles and the principles we have all set out, of course, in, in the resolution that's still, that's still in place. So that's one of the reasons we went to Syria. That's also, I understand, not completely, but almost the same reason also the Secretary-General just went last week. We also talked to him as Council members after he came back, and he was also quite positive. What we've been focusing on is to keep the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Syria, but we also keep reminding of some of the principles about inclusive government and transitional justice. We just had Carla Quintana in town 2 weeks ago about— talking about the missing persons file, and we had the 2 heads of the Syrian commissions also here on transitional justice also. Thank you. So— and of course, all of that includes the question of inclusion of the Kurdish communities in the transitional process. And I think we have been quite impressed that it was possible to make the deal, Decree Number 13, including also the question of citizenship. Having myself served in Syria before the war and during the beginning of the war, I know how much that was an issue for the Kurdish population there, the question of citizenship. So that seems to us to be a good development. So again, we want to encourage the very positive steps we've seen by the new Syrian transitional government and try to help them as much as we can as a council. And I think on this issue we might actually have a little bit more traction since we pretty much agree on what needs to be done here. We don't want to see another failed state in the Levant, and we're happy for the Syrian people that there seems to be a different way forward right now. On the color-coded It's typically something that happens in one of the later rounds. We have not sort of agreed on when that would happen. I think that would normally happen if we're sure that the next round is close to something where we have a final candidate that we can all agree on. I'm not sure we're there yet. It would be typically, I think I was told, in one of the 2 final rounds last time— last year— not last year, but last time in 2016, I think there were 6 rounds. And this happened maybe in the second-to-last round. So without having discussed this with my colleagues yet, I would not assume that we will have color-coded ballots already in this round.

Can you please answer the Kurdistan region question as well? Iraq?

Oh, sorry. Yes, I probably forgot about it because I'm not— I don't know too much about it. And again, your question about whether the Council can act on this if the Kurdish community community doesn't feel protected by its capital. That's something I would have to look into at least. And sometimes, usually, we will have somebody also asking the council to discuss this issue. And so far, it's not something that's been raised with us, but that's certainly something I would look into. So thank you for raising it here.

Okay. Thanks a lot. I think I didn't see a lot of hands, so we have time for 2 more questions, I think.

Yeah, it's okay if there are no more questions.

Ah, okay, good. No, but I think we need to also hear some who haven't had the chance to pose questions, so down there in the room. Thank you very much.

So my name is Daisuke Ijima from NHK Japan. So my question is about Greenland.

What?

About Greenland. So when your country is facing the threats from Russia, but at the same time you are facing a problem with the United States, how do you plan to manage How are you prepared to handle the presidency?

I think we are very ready to handle our presidency, and that's not something that we see as a challenge. I mean, we've been very clear. The Danish and Greenlandic governments have consistently rejected the American ambition to take over Greenland. There is a diplomatic track that we have now agreed on. We, of course, want to address completely legitimate American concerns about security in the Arctic or the higher north while respecting Danish and Greenlandic red lines. And those red lines are, for the Kingdom of Denmark, respect of our territorial integrity and sovereignty. And for the Greenlandic government, it's about their respect for the Greenlandic people's right to self-determination. So that's what I can say. There's a diplomatic process now, and, and that's what I can say from here. All right.

Okay, great. Thanks a lot. I think one last question and then we bring it to a close. Get the second chance.

Thank you again. Your country has an office for Palestinian representation in Copenhagen for many years. You have good relations with the Palestinians, I know that. But how can you keep delaying recognizing the Palestinian state? Thank you.

The way my government has seen this is that we want to do recognition whenever we feel it makes a difference. And for a long time, it was sort of affected by by one side in the conflict. Now, we've said very clearly last year— this was in connection with the New York Declaration— that this is up to the Palestinians really to decide. We will recognize an independent Palestinian state once certain conditions are met. Those include reform of the PA. Those include— this was also during the conflict in Gaza— the release of all the hostages we had. We have several conditions that are out there. So we basically say now this is in the ball of the court of the Palestinians. And that's when we will look into recognition. So there's no new on our recognition right now. As you said, we've had a Palestinian representative office, which was a couple of years ago enhanced to ambassador level, in Copenhagen for years, and the question of recognition is something we continuously look into and assess and evaluate. Thank you.

A question online.

We don't have any online.

That's interesting because I was told we didn't have online.

We don't have online, so you might be surprised to hear that.

All right, I think we decided to just have questions in the room today.

Only questions from the room.

So that was the way it was set up today. But thank you so much all for coming out once again. Hope to see you a lot this month in spite of the summer month. At least you would be here, that's great. And looking forward for your cooperation this Thank you so much.

Thank you. And can I just say, if you want to be on our distribution list, I need your business cards. Thank you.