“I would say that for the first time it will be possible to seriously discuss this reform, because so far the discussion has been a joke, to be quite honest. Because there was no basic document for the discussion and there was no record of either , every year the committee was sworn in, the committee worked for a year, there was nothing ‘input’ for this committee and there was nothing ‘output’ that this committee could give,” analyzed António Guterres.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations answered a question during the “Premier Speaker Series” public event, with Cape Verdean Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva, in Mindelo, on the island of São Vicente, where he is visiting.
“If you had asked me that question a year ago, I would have clearly said no. If you ask that question now, something strange happened in the last United Nations General Assembly,” he began by pointing when answering the question on the possibility of reforming the Security Council during his tenure.
He recalled that during that General Assembly, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, was “open to the presence of permanent members of the Council from Africa” and from Latin America, and that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergei Lavrov, “said Brazil and India joining the Security Council would be welcomed”
“The United States and Russia or the Russian Federation are clearly two fundamental elements to make any reform possible (…) Now I believe there are conditions for the committee dealing with Security Council reform to effectively have a serious discussion. Will this discussion lead to any result or not? It is too early to say, because we all know the difficulties,” he acknowledged.
The difficulties, he said, are caused by the five countries that are permanent members of the Security Council, with veto power (China, the United States, Russia, France and the United Kingdom) and “by relations, including between states, in choosing who represents other regions”.
“And we know that this problem also exists. That’s why I don’t want to give false hope. But for the first time there will be a serious discussion,” he acknowledged.
António Guterres today embarked on a three-day visit to Cape Verde as part of the Ocean Race, the world’s largest regatta that stops on the Cape Verde island of São Vicente from January 20 to 25. , at Ocean Summit.
Source: DN
