By Arul Louis United Nations, Sep 10 : In a move that gives a new energy to the campaign to push for UN Security Council reforms, US President Joe Biden will meet with other leaders at the General Assembly’s forthcoming high-level meeting to “forge an agreement” on the need to expand the Council as per Washington’s Permanent Representative Linda Thomas Greenfield.
“We need to come together around reasonable and credible ideas to increase the membership of the Security council,” she said while discussing the Future of the UN in San Francisco on Thursday.
“During the month’s General Assembly, President Biden and Secretary (of State Antony) Blinken, and I plan to hold a broad discussion about our individual and collective obligations as per the UN Charter as well as the crucial issues regarding the reform of the Security Council and other UN organs,” she said.
“You will be hearing more from us about this topic.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not be attending the annual General Assembly high level meeting that begins on September 20.the Minister of External Affairs S.Jaishankar will represent India.
“The Security Council should also reflect more accurately the current global trends and incorporate more perspectives that are geographically diverse,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
The fundamental organization of the Security Council goes back to the geopolitics of 1945, when the five countries which were winners of World War II — China (then represented by the Taiwan’s leadership of Taiwan), France and the UK as well as the US and the Soviet Union (now succeeded by Russia) — took over the right to veto permanent membership.
“We must not defend an outdated and unsustainable status quo that is no longer sustainable.
Instead, we need to show the flexibility to compromise and be willing to sacrifice in the in the name of more credibility and credibility,” she said emphasising the necessity for reforms.
The US has backed India’s quest for a permanent spot in the Security Council and despite Washington’s reservations about India’s neutrality in relation to Russia’s incursion of Ukraine There is no sign of change in Washington’s position.
Thomas-Greenfield stated that as a permanent member the US “will increase cooperation, inclusion as well as transparency”.
As the Security Council got its mandate from the entire members of the UN and is a representative of the UN and on behalf of its members, its “members should be engaged frequently and effectively with the General Assembly, with UN bodies, with relevant regional groups and with the diverse group of UN Members States”, she added.
Reform efforts for the Security Council have been blocked by a small number of countries that have prevented the Council from even approving the negotiating text upon which negotiations could proceed.
(Arul Louis is reached via [email protected] and can be followed on Twitter at @arulouis.)
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