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Russia favors making UN Security Council more efficient

07 February 2018 03:27 (UTC +04:00)

Russia favors increasing efficiency and promptness of the UN Security Council’s work, but opposes time limits and pressure when resolutions are being prepared, Russia’s UN envoy, Vasily Nebenzya, said during debates on Tuesday, APA reports quoting TASS.

According to the Russian diplomat, any improvements in Security Council’s work should be aimed at "increasing the efficiency and promptness of UN Security Council’s fulfillment of its task to maintain international peace and security."

"Too much populism, including on the issue of making the Security Council’s work more and more transparent, does not always help the cause. Transparency is important for informing UN member states and the global community about the Council’s work, but it should not impede frank and substantial discussions among Security Council members," he said.

Nebenzya said that the procedure and methods of coordinating UN Security Council resolutions also need to be improved.

"Recent situations, when we sometimes had to work amid artificially created deadlines and pressure without an opportunity to study documents in detail, are inadmissible. As a result, we got ‘raw’ documents which did not address concerns of all Security Council members," he said.

The Russian diplomat added that Russia was also concerned by attempts of "arbitrary interpretation of formats for considering situations in regions."

"In this regard, we should be guided not by national preferences, which often are de-facto just phobias, but by the real state of affairs in conflict zones," he said.

According to Nebenzya, UN Security Council working methods "should be improved on a regular basis," but this work will produce practical results "only when UN Security Council members refrain from promoting politicized approaches and choose coordinated work with respect for each other’s concerns and priorities."

Commenting on the issue of the veto right for permanent UN Security Council members, raised during the debate, Nebenzya reiterated that it was "a cornerstone of the entire UN Security Council architecture."

"It is not a privilege, it’s an instrument that guarantees that the Council’s decisions are balanced. Only decisions of this kind have high chances of being implemented with maximum efficiency," he said.