November 03, 2007	Saturday	Shawwal 21, 1428

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 2: Pakistan on Thursday called upon the international community to concentrate on conflict prevention and promoting durable solution to disputes which threaten international peace and security.

“It is time to invest in conflict prevention which is far cheaper and effective than conflict management,” said Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram, while speaking at the UN General Assembly session on peacekeeping operations.

While calling for strict application to the basic principles of peacekeeping — impartiality, consent of the parties, and non-use of force except in self-defence, Mr Akram said: “This is necessary to maintain, even to reinforce, the confidence in the United Nations’ action.”

He said that in order to preserve the neutrality and legitimacy of the United Nations, efforts should be made to distinguish UN peacekeeping missions from other kinds of peace operations led by non-United Nations entities, such as peace enforcement missions, even though authorised by the Security Council.

Towards that end, he said, it was unacceptable that the basic principles of peacekeeping could be altered by some other process or mechanism which lacked ownership of member states.

Any peacekeeping ‘doctrine document’ should be apolitical and should focus only on operational and practical aspects, while avoiding contentious issues on which there was no consensus among member states.

Pakistan’s chief delegate said that the developed countries must show greater political will to respond to the growing need for professional and well-equipped peacekeepers.

Troop contributing countries, which were the backbone of peacekeeping missions, must be consulted at all stages and be represented at the decision-making and senior managerial levels, both in the field and at headquarters, Mr Akram said.

Pakistan, Mr Akram pointed out, had participated in 33 missions to date, was a leading troop contributor and one of the top providers of police and military observers.

It had recently begun deploying women in its peacekeeping contingents. Around 95 per cent of Pakistani peacekeepers were currently deployed in Africa and had played major role in Sierra Leone and Burundi.

Mr Akram said that additional resources and greater political will were needed to maintain the success of UN peacekeeping operations over the long term.