Tackling 'veto' a must to reform UNSC: Pakistan

Pakistan has told the UN General Assembly that the issue of the veto power, which gives the Security Council's five permanent members disproportionate sway in matters of international peace and security, should be tackled as part of the 15-member body's reform aimed at making it more effective.

Speaking in a debate on the use of the veto, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, said the Security Council has often been paralyzed by the strategic rivalries of its permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the US — and the exercise of the veto.