Pakistan scuppers India’s UNSC bid

General Assembly decides to roll over intergovernmental talks into next UN session

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan, Italy, Argentina and other like-minded countries have once again thwarted plans by the so-called Group of 4, comprising India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, who are seeking the expansion of the UN Security Council.

The UN General Assembly on Tuesday decided to roll over the intergovernmental negotiations on Security Council reform to the next General Assembly session, something that is seen as success for countries part of the Uniting for Consensus (UfC), which is against the UNSC expansion in permanent seats.

The UfC, unlike the G4, has proposed additional non-permanent seats with longer duration in term and a possibility to get re-elected.

Brazil, India, Germany and Japan on the other hand have been pushing for expanding the current five permanent members of UNSC to 11. They have been laying claims to become permanent members of the UNSC, while proposing two other members from the Africa.

The process of reforms in the UNSC began in the General Assembly in February 2009 on five key areas that include the categories of membership, the question of veto, regional representation, size of an enlarged Security Council, and working methods of the council and its relationship with the General Assembly.

Despite general consensus on expanding the UNSC, member states have not agreed to the specifics delaying the process.

A Foreign Office official told The Express Tribune on Wednesday that the process of reform in the UNSC had to kick start from the UNGA. For any reforms it requires a vote of the two-thirds members of the 193-strong UNGA. At present, the official said, neither side have the required number.

But the official was of the view that unlike the G4, the UFC is not merely seeking reforms through the two-thirds vote but wider consensus in order to avoid any hiccup in the reform process, which involves several delicate and complicated steps.

The official said the G4 had been pushing for years to move from “oral negotiations” to “text-based negotiations”. But Pakistan along with other countries of the UfC have been opposing this move since agreeing on “text-based” negotiations means locking the proposals and discussions, which the G4 desperately wants.

In the latest round of intergovernmental negotiations, the G4 pushed for “text-based” negotiations but the UfC successfully thwarted the move. “I consider it as a major success for Pakistan and other like-minded countries,” the official insisted.

The official said that Pakistan was not opposed to the UNSC reforms but those had to be “democratic” and based on “principles.” The official explained that the UfC had shown flexibility in its stance by proposing the enlargement of the UNSC with additional non-permanent seats having longer duration in term and a chance to get re-elected.

“A non-permanent member term can be from 3 to 5 years and it can get re-elected,” the official said. At present, the UNSC has five permanent members with veto powers and 10 non-permanent members who are elected for a 2-year term.

Read UNSC reforms

The push for reforming the UNSC first came in 2004, when Brazil, India, Japan and Germany launched a joint campaign to get the permanent seats. But the process never took off since consensus could not be achieved on how to reform the UNSC.

The latest decision by the UN to roll over discussion for the next UNGA session set to begin this September has angered India. New Delhi termed the move as a "wasted opportunity" to instil a breath of life into a process that has shown no signs of life or growth in over four decades.

Indian Charge d’Affaires at UN R Ravindra said that India had been consistent in its position that the roll-over decision of the intergovernmental negotiations simply could not be reduced to a “mindless technical exercise”.

"We see this technical roll-over decision as yet another wasted opportunity to instil a breath of life into a process that has shown no signs of life or growth in over four decades," Ravindra added.

According to APP, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to UN Ambassador Muni Akram said that slow pace of progress in the Security Council reform “is not due to any deficiency in the procedure or process; it is due to the inflexible position adopted by a few individual states which have come into the negotiations with the pre-determined goal of fulfilling this ambition to become new permanent members of the Security Council, regardless of the principles of sovereign equality”.

In contrast, he said the UfC has demonstrated the greatest flexibility in these negotiations and shown its willingness to explore imaginative ways to reconcile divergent positions.

The Pakistani envoy said the UfC looked forward to continuing its constructive participation in the intergovernmental negotiations process at the next session in order to further broaden the areas of convergence and narrow the areas of divergence.

“We hope all member states and groups will demonstrate similar flexibility. If so, we can reach agreement on Security Council reform in the near future,” he said.

However, Ambassador Akram expressed surprise at the reference in the Assembly president’s letter forwarding the draft decision and “encouraging” the member states to move gradually towards “text-based negotiations”.

He said that this advice was gratuitous and it did not reflect the consensus or even a majority sentiment within the UN membership. “It is beyond the PGA’s [president of General Assembly] mandate to convey such advice,” he added.

“We see this only as an expression of your personal view which has no bearing on the continuing work of the IGN [intergovernmental negotiations],” Ambassador Akram said in remarks aimed at the UNGA President Abdulla Shahid, who is from Maldives.

“Any precipitate move to move to so-called ‘text-based negotiations’ will lock in positions and accentuate differences and freeze, if not reverse the progress we have made in expanding areas of convergence.”