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The Urkraine-Russia war has exposed the United Nations Security Council’s inability to stop wars due to misuse of veto power granted to the permanent members or the P5 nations, said Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi during a press briefing at the UN House on Monday. Korosi, who is on a 3-day tour of India said that Security Council reforms were a top priority for United Nations and there were several new measures that were being put in place to ensure that misuse of powers like veto can be minimized.
Watch | ‘India & UN have a vision for the world’, says UNGA President Csaba Korosi
UNSC reforms top priority for the organization
Korosi hailed India’s role in tackling matters of Ukraine-Russia conflict@UN_PGA
Report by @urvashikhona
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“Mr Jaishankar and I discussed the Ukraine war. It is one of the issues that comes up when we talk about reforms in Security Council. It it quite obvious why the security council must be reformed. The security council had been created in 1995 to stop any major war. Now, what we are seeing is one permanent member of the Security Council has committed aggression against its neighbour and annexed a part of its neighbour’s territory. The security council is in no position to do anything about this because of the veto power,” said Korosi.
He interacted with the media, briefing journalists about his meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, and Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri. “India has done a lot in terms of advancing security council reforms. India was very active in all Ukraine-related issues, both in the Security Council and in the General Assembly,” he said.
“My meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaishankar and Hardeep Puri were very productive. The level of support, the level of understanding, the level of strategic resonance exceeded all my expectations,” he added.
Elaborating on the measures being taken to reform the way UNSC functions, Korosi says one of the recent changes made in the voting process is that when a P5 nation vetoes a decision, they will have to explain the rationale behind their decision at the General Assembly. “This will lead to countries vetoing a resolution tread much more cautiously,” Korosi added.
The Security Council of the United Nation provides the veto power to all the five permanent members. United States of America, France, Britain, China and Russia have the power stop a “substantive” resolution. “Veto was granted to P5 nations in order to keep and security in the world. The veto has been granted in the charter 75 years ago, to encourage each other. But now it is being used block issues.”
“Over 70 members nations have demanded UN reforms. Many member states are saying that we delegate 15 countries to the Security Council – 5 permanent, 10 on an elected basis to represent the whole world. This will not just be a privilege but a responsibility,” he added.
Talking about the interventions that UNGA is making to alleviate the humanitarian crisis triggered by the war, Korosi said, “We are mostly focused on humanitarian aid and tackling issues of food security. Ukraine and Russia together provide about 30 to 45% of global exports of grains. The way the war expanded, it resulted in grain scarcity, shot up prices affecting the most vulnerable countries that were far away from the war zone. So, we used a lot of our political capital in solving these problems,” he said.
Earlier today he paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Raj Ghat on his death anniversary. Korosi was gifted a statue of the bust of Gandhi at Raj Ghat. The President of UNGA was invited on a three-day visit by the EAM S Jaishankar. This is his first bilateral visit to any country since he assumed UNGA office in September last year.
