*UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has underscored the need for flexibility to achieve the required consensus among all United Nations’ member states to overcome the stalemate in the long-running negotiations to restructure the UN Security Council.*
“The admittedly slow pace of progress in Security Council reform is not due to any deficiency in the process or procedures,” Ambassador Munir Akram said Wednesday in a resumed session of the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) aimed at making the 15-member Council more effective, representative and accountable.
The reason, he added, was “the inflexibility in the positions of a few individual states which have come into these negotiations with a pre-determined end goal of fulfilling their national ambitions to secure an elevated and privileged position within the Security Council, regardless of the principle of sovereign equality of states”, obviously referring to the relentless campaign by India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, known as G-4, for permanent seats in an expanded Council.
Full-scale negotiations to reform the Security Council began in the General Assembly in February 2009 on five key areas, 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.
Progress towards restructuring the Security Council remains blocked as India, Brazil, Germany and Japan continue pushing for permanent seats in the Council, while the Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group firmly opposes any additional permanent members.
As a compromise, UfC has proposed a new category of members, not permanent members, with longer duration in terms and a possibility to get re-elected.