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| September 23, 2005 | Friday | Sha'aban 18, 1426 |
UN Summit could have achieved more: FM
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 22: Pakistan on Wednesday told the international community that while it supported adoption of the outcome document at last week’s world summit at the UN General Assembly, it was disappointed with the overall results.
Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told the 191-member assembly that it could have achieved more if the agenda had not been so extensive, if the debate over Security Council reform had not sapped the energy from the summit’s preparatory process, and if negotiations on the document had begun sooner.
In a wide-ranging speech, partly reported by Dawn on Thursday, he said that while development remained at the top of the agenda for most developing countries, not much movement had been made on that issue, particularly in the areas of trade, investment flows and global governance.
The foreign minister said that terrorism was a global threat requiring a collective and determined response.
A major target of terrorist acts, Pakistan was at the forefront of global combat against the scourge and had initiated a number of measures aimed at eliminating terrorism and extremism, he said.
Among the measures were banning extremist organizations, cracking down on material and halting the misuse of religious institutions, he added.
Noting that the summit had endorsed the elaboration of a comprehensive strategy against terrorism, he called for the creation of an ad hoc working group to follow up on the matter.
He went on to deplore that the summit had made no real progress on issues related to disarmament, and that true consensus on the protection and promotion of human rights had not been achieved.
Turning to United Nations reform, he said that the General Assembly should be strengthened and its mandate should be preserved from encroachment by other bodies, particularly the Security Council.
He said that while the Security Council had primary responsibility for international peace and security, it lacked transparency and democracy. The 15-nation body was neither fully representative nor accountable to the organization’s general membership, he pointed out.
The council needed to be expanded by 10 additional non-permanent members to reflect the entire spectrum of the UN membership, he reiterated.
The council, he said, should not heighten its already apparent inequities by inducting new permanent members, which would alienate many important countries, divide and weaken the UN and further reduce its own legitimacy.—APP
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