KARACHI, Jan 21: Kashmir and Palestine represent failure of the United Nations which is faced with the role of the United States in peacekeeping.

This was stated by Jamsheed Marker, Pakistan’s former permanent representative at the United Nations, while speaking on Pakistan and the UN at the Agha Khan University here on Tuesday.

He also rejected the perception that after Iraq, the US would target Iran and Pakistan. He parried question when asked to comment on the possibility of Russia, France or China vetoing any attack on Iraq.

Mr Marker, who was also the UN secretary general’s representative for East Timor, dealt with the positive aspects of the UN’s contribution to the world order and in this regard referred to the process of decolonization, non-proliferation, combating terrorism, peacekeeping, etc.

Much against the popular perception that veto power, vested in the five permanent members, was unjust and obstructing resolution of disputes, ambassador Marker was of the view that “if veto power would not have been part of the UN system, it would have gone the way of the League of Nations many years ago.”

He pointed out that the two billion dollar-budget for the world body, even less than that of the Disneyland, was not enough to manage the affairs of humanity on global scale.

Referring to the various facets of terrorism, Mr Marker cited Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri’s speech in the Security Council, where he had drawn the attention of the world to the state-sponsored terrorism in the Indian occupied Kashmir. In this context, Mr Marker mentioned the presence of more than 400,000 Indian security forces there, which appeared almost double the military strength of Nato.

“Kashmir and Middle East are major failures of the United nations,” he remarked and said that one of the reasons why Kashmir had remained an unresolved issue so far, was that the resolutions in this regard had been adopted under chapter-six which did not contemplate on sanctions in case of non-compliance. The other factor, he added, was veto power which the big powers used to exercise for their own vested interests.

The former ambassador emphasized on realistic approach to view the present situation and stressed the need for focussing on mobilization of public opinion based on realities.

Asked how the world body moved so swiftly in East Timor case while it had remained a silent spectator in Kashmir, Mr Marker replied that the parties involved East Timor had accepted mediation by the UN. He said that Indonesia, under the leadership of Suharto, had prudently agreed to that. However, he added, in the case of Kashmir, India did not agree to any sort of negotiations.

Speaking on the changing concepts of peacekeeping since the inception of the UN, he maintained that Pakistan had made a major contribution to the world body’s peacekeeping efforts. In this context, he sad that Pakistan had contributed over 4,000 troops to restore peace in Sierra Leon after the hasty pullout by Indians. Pakistan had also played a similar role in Kosovo, Somalia, Georgia, East Timor and many other places including the Iraq-Kuwait border, he recalled.

On the question of nuclear non-proliferation, Jamsheed Marker said that NPT was aimed at restricting nuclear capability to only five designated nuclear powers.

He argued that since Pakistan and India had not signed the NPT, as they did not agree with the above-mentioned premise, they had not violated the NPT. But North Korea and Iraq had breached the treaty because they were signatories to the NPT.

Mr Marker described the US peacekeeping role as a ‘major problem’ facing the UN and said that not a single peacekeeping effort could be mounted without the help and participation of US which possessed strong logistical capability.

What was worrisome for him was the notion that the US did not need UN. “It is dangerous, particularly in the context of Iraq,” he remarked.

Asked what were the chance of India securing a permanent seat in the Security Council despite being a violator of UN resolutions, Mr Marker said that the SC was heavily Euro-centric and if India was aspiring for a seat, it would not be an smooth sailing for it because Japan was also there.

Responding to a questioner who held that Kashmir and Palestine problems remained unresolved because there was no permanent representation of the Muslims at the Security Council, the ex-ambassador regretted that the OIC had not been very forceful in this regard. In fact, he said, some of the members, for their own vested interests, were not supporting these causes.

Asked why the US used to ask other countries, like Pakistan, to send troops for peacekeeping when it had itself an absolute military capability to accomplish such tasks all alone, Mr Marker said that it was for Mr Rumsfeld to answer. He, however, added that the US would not put its troops under any other country’s command.

The general perception is that the US is not committing troops because of fear of a backlash and also because most of the problems across the globe were created by the US itself.