NEW YORK (AP) - The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution, sponsored by Greece and France, on Saturday condemning all attacks targeting journalists in armed conflicts and urging combatants to stop singling out members of the media and respect their professional independence.

The resolution is the first by the UN's most powerful body dealing specifically with journalists in armed conflict.

Greece's UN Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis said the resolution is «intended to raise international awareness to the dangers that the journalists, media professionals and associate personnel face when reporting in situations of armed conflict.»

«This is, we believe, a decisive first step in the right direction and sends a clear and unambiguous message to all parties in armed conflict that journalists and media personnel must be afforded the protection accruing to them under applicable international law and international humanitarian law,» Vassilakis said after the vote.

France's UN Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said earlier this month when the text was first circulated that there is increasing concern about the situation of journalists in armed conflict, noting that 75 have been killed so far this year.

To ensure that the Security Council regularly tackles the issue, the resolution asks the secretary-general to address the safety and security of journalists in his regular reports on the protection of civilians in armed conflict.

A request to address the protection of journalists in his reports on specific countries, which was in the original text, was dropped.