TLTP
ISLAMABAD
Pakistan has firmly opposed the creation of new permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
Addressing the first meeting of Intergovernmental Negotiations Framework during the 75th session of the UN, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative at the world body Munir Akram said that creation of new permanent seats will make the Security Council less representative, less effective and more divided, and erode the principle of sovereign equality of states.
Munir Akram reiterated Islamabad’s principled position for comprehensive reforms of the Security Council which meet the interests of all member states. Pakistan has warned that attempts by aspirants of permanent seats on the UN Security Council — India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, known as G-4 — to railroad efforts to reform the 15-member body would kill the consensus-based process to make it more effective, representative and accountable.
Having failed to evoke support for their bid for permanent membership of the Council, he said that the G-4 members were trying to create the ‘fear’ that the opportunity for reform may soon be lost unless their procedural moves to short circuit the process were endorsed. “We are prepared to breathe new life in the IGN but some states are bent upon killing the process,” Ambassador Akram said.
The G-4 has shown no flexibility in their push for expanding the Council by 10 seats, with six additional permanent and four non-permanent members. On the other hand, the Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group opposes any additional permanent members, saying it would make the Council less representative, less effective and more divided and will diminish the right of the vast majority of the UN membership to serve on the Council.
