UN security council outdated, needs new members: Brazil
by Staff Writers
Vienna June 21, 2010
The UN Security Council is outdated and needs to bring in new blood, Brazil's foreign minister Celso Amorim said here Monday, complaining that non-permanent members were not being taken seriously.
"The Security Council no longer reflects the political reality" but rather a reality "that was true 65 years ago," Amorim told journalists during a visit to Vienna where he met with his Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger.
Instead, the Council should look to the G20 group of industrialised and emerging economies, he said, and bring in countries like Brazil, India and South Africa as permanent members alongside the five current veto-wielding powers -- the United States, Britain, Russia, China and France.
Amorim also criticised the Council for failing to take seriously a joint Brazil-Turkey bid last month to curb Iran's nuclear programme.
Brasilia and Ankara, both non-permanent members of the Council, brokered a nuclear swap deal with Iran in an attempt to avoid new sanctions against Tehran. But the deal was dismissed by the United States and other UN powers.
"That casts doubt over (our) credibility. Yet, Turkey and Brazil are unblemished emerging countries who approached Tehran with good intentions," Amorim insisted.
The Brazilian also complained of "zero transparency at the technical level," noting that non-permanent Council members only learned of the new draft on sanctions against Iran via media reports.
Brazil and Austria are among the ten non-permanent members of the Council who rotate every two years.
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London (UPI) Jun 16, 2010
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