UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday praised Pakistan’s initiative at the UN Security Council (UNSC) to strengthen mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of disputes, saying the move was particularly important at a time when conflicts were escalating across the Middle East and beyond.

Addressing an UNSC open debate held pursuant to Pakistan-sponsored Resolution 2788 (2025), the UN chief presented recommendations aimed at making diplomacy, mediation and conflict prevention more effective tools for maintaining international peace and security.

The resolution, which was presented by Pakistan during its presidency of the UNSC last year and adopted unanimously by the Council, seeks to strengthen the use of peaceful means available under the UN Charter, including negotiation, mediation, conciliation, arbitration and judicial settlement.

Pakistan had argued that diplomacy should not be used only after conflicts erupt but should serve as a means to prevent crises from escalating.

“As conflicts escalate across the Middle East and beyond, military solutions cannot deliver lasting peace,” Guterres said, calling for restraint, protection of civilians and renewed commitment to diplomacy.

“The situation is getting out of control. It’s teetering on the edge of the unimaginable,” the secretary-general warned, noting that the region was being “pulled into another widening circle of confrontation.”

“One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next,” he said, adding that as this dynamic spreads, “the political objectives are becoming increasingly obscured by the confrontation itself.”

“It’s time to step back,” Guterres said, stressing that “attacks on civilian infrastructure are unacceptable” and that “there’s no military solution to the conflict.”

“Fighting must stop everywhere in the region,” he said, while calling for the restoration of “international navigational rights and freedoms in and around the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab.”

“Diplomacy is the only way forward,” the UN chief added.

Recognising Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts, Guterres said: “I want to recognise the mediation of Pakistan and countries in the region working to reduce tensions and create space for dialogue.”

“These efforts must be supported and strengthened in pursuit of a peaceful and durable settlement,” he said.

The secretary-general also highlighted developments in the occupied West Bank, saying: “We see creeping annexation with violence, settlement expansion, extensive Israeli military operations and large-scale displacement.”

Pakistan welcomed the secretary-general’s recommendations, with Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Islamabad’s permanent representative to the UN, expressing “profound appreciation” for what he described as “thoughtful, practical and forward-looking” proposals.

Speaking at the UNSC debate, Ambassador Ahmad said sustained implementation of the recommendations would strengthen not only mechanisms for peaceful settlement of disputes but also reinforce implementation of the UN Charter itself.

“These recommendations carry significance far beyond today’s meeting,” he said, adding that they could help “restore conflict prevention and resolution to its rightful place, at the heart of the United Nations, and translate the promise of Chapter VI into practice.”

The ambassador said Resolution 2788 was conceived in the spirit that diplomacy must not be “the instrument we scramble for, after peace has failed,” but rather the means through which failure could be prevented.

He said the challenge was not the absence of mechanisms under the Charter but their “delayed, selective and inconsistent use,” warning that the Security Council often became engaged only after positions had hardened and the space for compromise had narrowed.

Ambassador Ahmad said Pakistan remained committed to peaceful settlement of disputes and cited Islamabad’s recent diplomatic engagement in West Asia as an example of efforts to facilitate dialogue. He said Pakistan, together with partner countries, had played a constructive mediating role between Iran and the United States, helping create space for negotiations.

He expressed regret over renewed hostilities and urged all sides to exercise restraint and return to dialogue, saying that whenever negotiations falter, “the answer is not in less but more determined diplomacy.”

The Pakistani envoy called for stronger follow-up mechanisms for UNSC resolutions, greater use of fact-finding and mediation tools, increased support for the secretary-general’s good offices, and closer cooperation between the UN and regional organisations.

He said the value of Resolution 2788 would ultimately be measured not by the unanimity with which it was adopted but by the consistency with which it was implemented.

“History documents the wars that broke out. It rarely records the war that did not begin because a channel remained open, a mediator persisted, a leader exercised restraint or an institution acted in time,” Ambassador Ahmad said, describing prevention and peaceful settlement as diplomacy’s highest achievements.