Ex-Ambassador to the United Nations: 'NAM source of future changes in U'

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The 16th Summit of the world’s second largest international body, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), has started in Iran’s capital city of Tehran with more than 120 countries participating in the event at highest levels.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi says the Non-Aligned Movement countries oppose the adverse consequences of the current world order, stressing the United Nations must make fundamental reforms in its structure.

“Six decades since its establishment, the United Nations needs fundamental reforms in order to adapt to the modern global developments,” Salehi said during the opening ceremony of the NAM expert-level meeting in Tehran on Sunday.

Interviewed Iran’s former Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Kazem Sajjadpour to elaborate more on the issue of the NAM summit in Iran.

Sajjadpour is joined by political analyst Sara Marusek from Beirut.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Q: We are looking at your former post here, so I would like to zoom in on the UN and Iran’s concerns regarding the UN, its concerns [which are] shared by many of the NAM countries; 120 of these countries and that is the power increase of the UN Security Council and also the need for reforms generally speaking.

Can you address the shortcomings of the UN and how NAM is going to be able to move towards, perhaps, solving some of these shortcomings?

Sajjadpour: Actually the most vivid shortcoming as you said is the decision-making process in the United Nations Security Council, where we have veto power of few world powers and they can veto the decisions.

Of course it is not a very white and black issue. It is very complicated but there has been a great, let us say, movement towards redefining it. However, it has not been successful because UN is not just about good words, it is real politics, you know, which works there, but politics is a matter of pressure, lobbying, putting your weight here and there, and I think in that context not just NAM in particular but the world at large requires reforming the United Nations.

But I have to underline that changing the United Nations’ system is going to be very incremental. There is a lot of resistance.

I would like to end at this specific point that the UN also should not be equated with the United Nations Security Council. If you put aside the United Nations Security Council, the UN system by and large is a ‘South Institution.’ Most of the members are from the South, most of the members are from developing countries and really it is reflective of the international society in that sense that every nation state is there with equal power, with equal voting, but the Security Council is different and we have not to equate the totality of the United Nations system with the Security Council.

So this is very important that when we look at NAM, NAM is a bloc within the United Nations, within the General Assembly and all its agencies and all its discussions and through this, let us say channel, NAM exerts power and influence on decision makings, on debates and in that respect you can see incremental changes come also from these sources.

Q: OK. That is a very important point that you made there and it is a point well-taken.

But I would like to, I guess, then zoom in on the UN Security Council and let us bring in the situation in Syria, in which, it is very vivid the statements that were made by the ambassador of the United States to the UN when the veto vote came in from Russia and China; and very blatantly she said, ‘we are going to work outside of the UN to support the [Syrian armed] opposition’.

So explain this to me how the United States, given that they hold veto wielding power, can come out in the open, say that, which means in essence, ‘We use the UN when we think it is to our advantage,’ is not it the conclusion that is reached by a statement like that?

Sajjadpour: Very good question, first of all as I said the United Nations is reflective of real politics, I mean it is not about morality or good behavior.

So her statement reflects the United Nations’ intention towards Security Council and the United Nations at large.

Every nation state, including world powers, use the United Nations for its own purposes, but what happened in the Security Council after the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, there was mostly a unanimity in the Security Council. That means China and Russia were onboard with the West mostly. You have just two or three situations were these two countries vetoed previously.

That is the case of human rights in Myanmar and also the election in Zimbabwe, but the other Security Council resolutions were all passed with China and Russia being onboard.

But what happened after the Libyan case, Resolution 1973, which was not exactly about using military forces, but the West, the United States and its partners, used a phrase in these resolutions to justify their military operations against Libya. China and Russia came to this conclusion, now [that] it is over, if we want to just yield to the pressure of the West and accept this resolution, we are going to be their followers.

So they had a different approach on Syria and now West came to this conclusion, including, I mean with the leadership of the United States, that they have to look at the alternative channels for military interaction.

I think that it is not going to be easy for them, it does not mean whatever the superpowers want immediately they can do it. It would lack international legitimacy and I think that international legitimacy is very required component of any action that they want to make, but they may use excuses here and there. However, the UN by itself, is not, let us say, a super place where everything should be gauged against certain values. I think it is reflection of world politics and we have to take into account that world politics changes and the changes have reflection there.

Q: Let us talk about that point, international legitimacy, here if we can Mr. Sajjadpour and I would like you to please elaborate more about how the UN can gain that, when you say international legitimacy, I am assuming obviously 120 countries need to be the ones that they have to get this legitimacy from and if you can combine that with the fact that the US and some of these Western countries are on the decline.

So they are in need more of these countries [NAM member states] because maybe before they could have dictated the rules of, let us say, finances but now they do not have that strong support base, financially speaking anymore.

So if you can describe how the UN can gain this international legitimacy from the NAM countries?

Sajjadpour: I think that your question first of all leads to international legitimacy then on the NAM and the international legitimacy.

In response to your question I have to say, you know, power cannot be exerted very nakedly. You have to have acceptance by those whom these powers or these instruments of power are going to be exerted.

So here comes legitimacy. You have to accept why this action is taken. The rationale, the reasoning comes usually with legitimacy.

The United Nations is one of the sources of international legitimacy, but it does not mean that it is complete or every, let us say, single international action should be approved by the United Nations. No! It is not the case. It is one of the sources.

When the majority of the United Nations member states approve a decision, it does not mean that that is absolutely right or 100 percent legitimate, but it means that it has support at least by the states and do not forget that the United Nations is the global states. It is assumed that the states are representatives of their nations.

So there is a linkage here where NAM comes to the picture when the decision is at a level where the General Assembly, where other institutions, save the Security Council, are involved.

In that case, of course the NAM can have its influence and I have to say that UN is a very technical issue… UN mechanism is very technical. When you want to have a discussion it should go through what we call it in the United Nations system ‘rules of procedure.’

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