UNGA moves stalled UNSC reform talks to its 81st session

Pakistan pushes for reducing differences

UNITED NATIONS:

The UN General Assembly has unanimously decided to "roll over" the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) on Security Council reform into its upcoming 81st session in September, with Pakistan calling the process the "only legitimate forum" to restructure the 15-member body to make it more effective.

"The reform of the Security Council is one of the most consequential institutional undertakings before the United Nations," Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, told the 193-member Assembly.

The General Assembly acted without a vote in deciding to continue the IGN process in the upcoming session, entering its 18th year spanning 17 previous rounds of deadlocked talks.

Full-scale negotiations to reform the Security Council began in the General Assembly in February 2009 on five clusters 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 a general agreement on enlarging the Council, as part of the UN reform process, member states remain sharply divided over the details.

The so-called Group of Four - India, Brazil, Germany and Japan - who seek for themselves permanent seats on the Council have 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, which firmly opposes additional permanent members, has proposed a new category of members - not permanent members - with longer duration in terms and a possibility to get re-elected.