Pakistan urges members to avoid confrontation: UNSC reform

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 18: Pakistan on Monday called upon all member states to avoid confrontation on all issues relevant to the reform of the 15-member UN Security Council if further concrete results will be achieved by “building on the progress achieved so far, particularly at the last session”.

“We need to proceed, at the next stage, to agree on the evolving consensus on the basis for a negotiated outcome,’’ said Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram while addressing a meeting of the UN General Assembly held to consider the reforms and expansion of the Security Council, the most powerful organ of the world body.

Two years ago the so-called group of four group comprising India, Germany, Japan, and Brazil had sought to increase the membership of the UN Security Council by six seats, four permanent and two non-permanent seats.

Pakistan and the Unity for Consensus (UFC) group in their proposal sought 10 non-permanent seats saying new corridors of powers should not be created.Mr Akram said that Pakistan and the UFC group had always maintained that a “negotiated” settlement of the issue with broadest possible support was the only way to achieve progress on the issue of the Security Council.

He emphasised that “consensus can only be achieved through negotiations” and not through vote. Mr Akram added that the “negotiations must be based on and built upon the progress that has been achieved’’.

Alluding to recent efforts by some member states, including India, SouthAfrica and Germany, to push for vote instead of a consensus agreement, Pakistan’s chief delegate at the UN recalled “that over the course of history there have been many occasions where the seekers of power and privilege have professed that they have come not to praise but to bury the Caesar.

It is however, clear that their real design is to seek privilege and power for themselves’’.