New York: Pakistan has called for strengthening the role as well as capacity of UN peacekeeping in hotspots across the world, suggesting that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) should create effective political mechanisms in order to promote peace agreements among parties to the war and conflict.
Speaking in the 15-member Council as it discussed UN peacekeeping operations, Ambassador Munir Akram pointed out that such a mechanism would need greater cooperation among members of the UNSC, particularly the permanent ones, notwithstanding their geopolitical rivalries.
The Pakistani Ambassador said that peacekeeping missions should also put greater emphasis on promoting local peace arrangements at the community level to decrease violence, quoting the successful efforts of the Pakistani peacekeepers in restive Abyei, an area disputed by the Sudan and South Sudan.
Monday’s meeting was organized by Slovenia as the rotating President of the UNSC for the month of September. At the beginning, Ambassador Akram stated Islamabad has a long and close involvement with UN peace operations.
Pakistan and the UN Peacekeeping Operations
Pakistan, he stated, is host to one of the first United Nations missions — the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which was set up in 1949 to monitor the truce along the line of control (LoC) in disputed Jammu and Kashmir.
For its part, Pakistan has also deployed around 230,000 peacekeepers in 46 missions and has lost 181 peacekeepers in the service of global peace and security, the envoy said.
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In today’s day and age, the Ambassador stated, United Nations peacekeeping missions find themselves facing new and increasing challenges, including violence and chaos spread by terrorists, involvement of organized criminal networks in unlawful extraction of resources and criminal activities; external interferences in local conflicts; limitations imposed on the resources for UN peacekeeping and erosion of unified support from member nations, particularly the Council’s permanent nations.
The world, especially the United Nations and the UNSC, must extend complete support to those regional organizations — like the African Union — who are prepared to take more robust operations where essential to enforce peace, the Ambassador said.
