KOLKATA : There is an urgent need for reforms at the UN to meet the challenges of international terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and promotion of human rights, former Under-Secretary-General of the global body Shashi Tharoor has said here.
“The UN is indispensable and has no alternative. Absence of reforms could discredit it and there is an urgent need for reforms,” he said at a programme here yesterday.
Tharoor, a Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram who quit the UN in 2007 after losing the race for the post of Secretary General to Ban Ki-moon, said already there was a danger that countries in groups were attaching importance to other fora like the G-20.
He quoted former US president Harry Truman who said “If we fail to do that (maintain UN), we will betray those who have died (read in the Holocaust, Hiroshima bombings and the two World Wars)”.
There is now a need for even a stronger UN to meet the challenges of international terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and promotion of human rights, he said.
Regarding India’s permanent membership to the UN Security Council, he said “that issue has been flogged to death”.
“That issue is reflecting the geo-political situation of 1945 and not of today,” Tharoor said. (AGENCIES)
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