Mr Jaishankar said the pressure for change was also visible at the BRICS summit.
Reforming the United Nations won’t be easy, but you don’t have to be pessimistic, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said today, adding that the really big achievements will take time, hard work and a lot of negotiation.
In an exclusive interview with NDTV, Mr. Jaishankar cited the example of the recent BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, where the statement made explicit reference – for the first time – to membership in the United Nations Security Council.
“There is a reference to memberships, plural. There is a specific reference to India, Brazil and South Africa. So it’s not like this is something that’s stuck and doesn’t move. Yes, it moves slowly. Yes, “We would like the intergovernmental negotiations in New York to accelerate. We want these to be text-based, we want people to be more results-oriented,” said the minister.
“But diplomacy is not for the impatient, it’s something you have to shut down and keep shutting down. It’s almost as patient as the military in some ways. Unfortunately, what we are seeing in many ways is a stalemate in the Security Council on some issues. Even before the conflict in Ukraine started, we actually felt that the Security Council no longer authentically represented the entirety of its members,” he added.
Mr. Jaishankar said that if the most populous country in the world is not a member of the Security Council, if 54 countries of Africa are not there, if Latin America is not there, the fact that the council is very anachronistic is very visible. He said the pressure for change was also visible in the BRICS and that is why we are starting to see “the evolution of the positions outside”.
In response to a question about whether the G20 could gain importance at the expense of the United Nations, the minister said: “The G20 will pursue its mandate of global growth and development. The UN and the UN Security Council have their mandate. The Security Council, in particular, has a mandate to ensure international peace and security. One cannot replace the other. I want to warn against transferring problems and agendas from one person to another.’
Mr Jaishankar said the United Nations cannot be dissolved by countries saying let’s do the work elsewhere. “The UN will not fix that. That will make for a weak and increasingly ineffective UN, which is the direction we see it going now. At some point, the members themselves must wake up to the realization that the longer they delay reforms, the less representative the Security Council is, the less credibility of the UN would frankly be. People will then start doing things outside the UN.’
