ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has rejected India’s claim to a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, with Islamabad’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, saying New Delhi has “no credentials whatsoever” to stake such a claim.
Speaking on Pakistan TV Digital’s programme South Speaks with Saqib, Ahmad said countries seeking permanent membership of the Security Council should be assessed based on their voting records, compliance with previous Council resolutions and commitment to the UN Charter.
“There are several countries, including our neighbour obviously, which has no credentials whatsoever to even stake a claim for permanent membership of the Security Council,” he said, in an apparent reference to India.
Ahmad also criticised the campaign for additional permanent seats led by the G4 grouping – India, Germany, Japan and Brazil – arguing that the demand had contributed to the failure to achieve meaningful reform of the Security Council for nearly two decades.
“This is like seeking a certain privilege from this whole process. We believe that is an unjust demand, and not just unjust, it is unfeasible,” he said.
The Pakistani envoy questioned whether expanding the number of permanent members would make the Council more effective, pointing to its repeated inability to reach consensus on major international crises, including the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.
He attributed much of the Council’s paralysis to disagreements among its five existing permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – particularly their use of the veto.
“If the council is deadlocked often because of the positions of five permanent members, you can imagine that it will be even more deadlocked if you have eight, nine or 10 permanent members instead of the current five,” Ahmad said.
He argued that adding more countries with veto powers would create further obstacles rather than improve the Council’s ability to act. “More problems, not less problems,” he said.
Ahmad described the veto as an “undemocratic” and “unilateral blocking power”, stressing that even a permanent member cannot adopt a resolution on its own and must secure at least nine affirmative votes in the 15-member Council.
Pakistan backs elected-seat model
The ambassador outlined Pakistan’s preferred alternative to expanding permanent membership, saying Islamabad supports the position of the Uniting for Consensus group, which advocates increasing the number of elected rather than permanent seats.
The group, which Pakistan leads alongside countries including Italy, Canada, Türkiye, South Korea, Mexico and Argentina, proposes adding 10 elected seats to create a 25-member Security Council.
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Under the proposed arrangement, elected members would outnumber permanent members by four to one, potentially giving the wider UN membership a greater role in the Council’s decision-making process.
Ahmad said the model would also prevent the concentration of additional veto powers in the hands of a small number of states. Under such an arrangement, he noted, resolutions could still be blocked if they failed to secure the required number of votes.
Pakistan has consistently opposed the creation of new permanent seats, including for India, Germany, Japan and Brazil, and has instead called for an expansion of non-permanent membership as part of any future reform of the Security Council.
The debate over reform has remained unresolved for years, with competing proposals focusing on how to make the Council more representative while preserving its ability to respond effectively to international crises.
