UNITED NATIONS - UN police has become a central pillar of UN peace operations, said UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson here on Friday.
Addressing the first-ever United Nations Chiefs of Police Summit, Eliasson said UN police are central to protecting human rights and preventing situations from deteriorating in the setting of UN missions.  From Kabul to Kinshasa... from Port-au-Prince to Pristina, United Nations Police work in some of the most challenging situations on earth, said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a video message to the summit.  UN Statistics show that the UN Police force had grown from 2, 000 in 1999 to more than 13,000 today. They are deployed in 13 UN peacekeeping missions as well as five special political missions worldwide.
The summit is expected to become a platform to discuss how peace operations and national policing complement and mutually reinforce each other when addressing current and emerging challenges, such as transnational threats. (Xinhua)