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Can't allow veto to have a veto over UNSC reform process: India

News Agencies | Updated on: 14 February 2017, 5:52 IST

As differences persist among UN member states on the key issue of veto, India has asserted that the topic cannot be allowed to block the process of Security Council reform and called for consolidating the negotiating text on the basis of convergence reached so far.

India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said:

"The issue of veto is important but then we cannot also allow the veto to have a veto over the process of Council reform itself."

Akbaruddin urged the chair of the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) to consolidate the negotiating text on the basis of convergence reached on issues so far while also delineating the divergence and the contrarian view of some.

He stressed that that chair should ask member states to build further on the consolidated and shortened text. Reiterating India's national position on the issue of veto, Akbaruddin said as long as the veto exists, it should be extended to new permanent members in a reformed Security Council.

Speaking during the informal plenary meeting of the IGN on 'Question of Veto', he said that as a measure of "flexibility and willingness for compromise", the use of the veto can be deferred till the Review Conference:

"The African Union (and this is understandable) does not wish to defer use. The difference, we see, as one of a degree than one of a kind."

Giving an elaborate historical perspective on the use of the veto in the 70-year history of the UN, Akbaruddin said from the time the Security Council was created in 1946 till today, 317 vetoes have been cast and as result 230 draft resolutions or parts thereof have been vetoed in total.

In effect 10 per cent of the 2,271 resolutions adopted till date have been vetoed.

- Edited By Aishwarya Yerra

First published: 10 March 2016, 6:16 IST