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Bid to seek UN Security
Council’s expansion fails
United Nations—A draft, recently circulated by Cyprus and Germany,
proposing to add seven new members to the UN Security Council failed
to muster any significant support in a General Assembly’s panel
tasked with promoting an agreement on the 15-member body’s reform,
diplomats said.
The proposal, backed by a group of countries, was billed as the
latest attempt to try to break a deadlock on the issue of expanding
the council, the UN’s most powerful body. But it ran into opposition
in the Assembly’s Open-Ended Working Group from the African Group
and the Italy/Pakistan-led Uniting for Consensus (UfC) group as well
as the United States and Russia.
The move by what has become known as the “overarching group” was
seen as “unilateral” and one that cannot become the basis of further
negotiations on expanding the council. Pakistan’s U.N. Ambassador
Munir Akram rejected as “arbitrary and unilateral” the proposal,
which is an off-shoot of the one put forward in 2005 by four
aspirants of permanent seats on the council— India, Brazil, Germany
and Japan.
“We believe no 30 countries can get together and say they represent
all others especially when they exclude other members from different
groups,” he said while speaking in the Assembly’s Working Group on
Thursday. “This unilateral initiative, self-described as an
overarching group, and later as an overarching process, has
elaborated a paper, which ignores the framework for our further work
that was reflected in the last (Working Group) report and in the
(Assembly President’s) guiding principles,” Ambassador Akram said.
“Thus, it cannot pretend to become the basis of further work; indeed
in this inter-governmental process, it cannot even be taken into
formal cognizance.” —APP
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