MOSCOW (Sputnik) – UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has stressed the importance of cutting off Islamic State (ISIL) radicals’ finances, which are predominantly generated by illicit oil trade, after the adoption of a France-initiated UN Security Council counter-terrorism resolution.
"The United Nations Security Council has demonstrated the unity of the international community in working to defeat ISIL. We must all act by continuing to cut off its finance, severing its access to oil and stemming the flow of foreign fighters, in addition to the military action we are taking against this evil ideology," Hammond said in a Friday statement released by the UK Foreign Office.
The statement came after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a France-initiated counter-terrorism resolution, which recognizes ISIL, as well as other radical groups, as a global threat and calls on all UN member-states to redouble their counter-terrorism efforts.
Ilya Rogachev, head of the Department for New Challenges and Threats (DNCT) at the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed on Friday that UN member-states must be more strict in their adherence to UN Security Council Resolution 2199, which calls for strong opposition to illicit oil trade by terrorist groups, such as ISIL.
Speaking in an interview with the Russian Kommersant newspaper, Rogachev cited experts as saying that ISIL extracts 40,000-50,000 barrels of oil a day.
UN Security Council Resolution 2199 recognizes that illicit oil trade is the main source of ISIL income and obliges all states to oppose it in the strongest terms.
