Sweden urges UN Security Council to produce results in 2017

UNITED NATIONS – Sweden's U.N. ambassador is urging members of the often divided U.N. Security Council to make a New Year's resolution: Try to find common ground and produce results in 2017 that improve global peace and security.

Olof Skoog, the council president for January, says he also hopes members of the U.N.'s most powerful body can look beyond their national interests and "deal with each other in a respectful way," which has been "missing sometimes."

Skoog said at a news conference Tuesday that some people may think "this is a typical naive Swedish way" of becoming a council member for the first time in 20 years, or as "a little bit of motherhood and apple pie." But he says there is momentum now following recent resolutions on Israeli settlements and Syria.