Kuwait fully cognizant of Saudi uneasiness over UNSC performanceN

Kuwait fully understands the position taken by Saudi Arabia regarding membership in the UN Security Council and shares Saudi dismay over the Council's remissness in taking up its responsibilities vis-@-vis Arab and Islamic issues and causes, said a Kuwaiti official here. Addressing the 68th session of the UN General Assembly last night on the issue of equitable representation in the UNSC, Kuwait's UN envoy ambassador Mansour Al-Otaibi said any reforms to the security council should be part of an overhaul of all of the UN's apparatuses and agencies. He said that representation in the council should reflect adequately the aspirations of all UN members to one day sit on the council and should take into account the geopolitical changes that have occurred to the world since the establishment of the UN in 1945. The UNSC, he further said, should follow a course of work more in tune with the necessity for transparency in the decision-making process, in particular where the tool of the Veto was concerned. The veto privilege should be exercised within streamlined parameters such as resorting to it only in cases dealing with the Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, ambassador Al-Otaibi said. On the notion of increasing the council's seats to allow more countries to be represented, he said that "any increase should take into account giving the opportunity to small nations to become members of the council as well as Arab and Islamic ones whose representation should reflect their current statuses in today's world." He condoned the French proposal that the veto right be suspended in the cases of crimes against humanity, saying that in such cases the current permanent five members of the council should voluntarily dismiss the use of the veto. "For more than 25 years there have been an abundance of discussions regarding the expansion of the membership in the UNSC and the streamlining of its functions; however they have not led to any substantive changes," he said, advising that political will and determination were necessary to make these changes. Moreover, Ambassador Al-Otaibi expressed Kuwait's support to the message by the Bahraini envoy to the UN, in his capacity as head of the group of Arab nations in the UN, which he sent on October 31, 2013 to president of the UN General Assembly John Ash, in which the Bahraini envoy noted that any expansion in the seats on the UNSC should take into account Arab representation as permanent members. In summation of his speech to the General Assembly, ambassador Al-Otaibi underscored the imperative that negotiations among world governments should precede any expansion or reforms done to the UNSC.