Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, has noted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent critical remarks pertaining to the UN’s work.
“In recent comments, including those made at his press conference about a month ago, the Secretary-General [Antonio Guterres] made it clear that the [UN] system is not as effective as it could be. In particular, he pointed out the lack of unity between the organisation’s key member states, not least those who are UN Security Council members”, Haq said on Friday.
According to him, the UN Secretary-General believes that unity is necessary if humanity wants to effectively grapple with challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
"And in this regard, he [the UN Secretary-General] also calls for more joint international efforts to prevent [global] conflicts”, Haq pointed out.
The UN Secretary-General deputy spokesman made the comments following Vladimir Putin's article about the 75th anniversary of World War II victory that was published on the Kremlin website on Friday. Earlier, the article appeared in the US magazine National Interest.
In the opinion piece, the Russian President focused, among other issues, on assessing the work of the UN system, in the context of the creation of this international organisation in October 1945.
“Of course, we can see that the UN system currently experiences certain tension in its work and is not as effective as it could be. But the UN still performs its primary function. The principles of the UN Security Council (UNSC) are a unique mechanism for preventing a major war or a global conflict”, Putin underscored.
In this vein, he warned against denying special opportunities to UNSC permanent members and abolishing their veto power, “the calls” that Putin rejected as “irresponsible”.
The Russian President also cautioned that if the above-mentioned scenario “happens, the United Nations would in essence become the League of Nations – a meeting for empty talk without any leverage on the world processes. How it ended is well known”, Putin stressed, in an apparent reference to the beginning of the Second World War on 1 September, 1939.
In the article, he described the League of Nations as an organisation that “proved ineffective” and that “in general turned a deaf ear to the repeated calls of the Soviet Union to establish an equitable collective security system”.
