The Islamic Republic of Iran
has been victim of numerous violations of international law and while it
expected the UN to come to its aid, it has been surprised to find that
the United Nations Security Council has not helped any, but on occasions
rather contributed to the country’s afflictions.
The Iranian deputy permanent representative to the UN said on Friday that reforming the UN Security Council is possible by participation of all the members of the UN.
The international community has reached the conclusion that the UN Security Council cannot play its part in maintaining international peace and security through its current strategies, Gholam-Hossein Dehqani said in his speech at the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday.
"The Security Council with, its current composition and working methods, which are by far outdated, proved to be incapable to undertake its very important responsibility of maintaining international peace and security. The entire membership shares the goals of a more representative, effective, democratic, accountable and transparent Council. The question is: how to reach those goals?” Dehqani stated in his speech.
"The UN membership, during the 62nd Session of the General Assembly, embarked on the process of IGN On the basis of Decision 62/557. This Decision mandates this Assembly to achieve a holistic reform on five key issues: categories of membership, the veto, size and working methods, regional representation, and the relation between the Security Council and the General Assembly and other important bodies. Expansion of the Council is one of the elements of the overall reform while other four elements are equally important and all five are linked. We believe that no Council reform would be successful unless and until, all five interrelated clusters are appropriately, comprehensively and inclusively addressed.”
The Iranian deputy permanent representative to the UN then added, "Despite the lack of progress on the main issues, we still believe that the process of the reform of the Council should not be subject to any predetermined or superficial time-table. Any unconsidered and careless decision would run the risk of harming this very delicate process which is of vital importance and great interest for the whole membership and the Organization and will have far-reaching impacts for the whole world. Therefore, all efforts should be made to reach the broadest possible agreement among the Member States. Text-based negotiation certainly is one efficient way forward, at the same time we need to agree on such a text. I wish to reiterate that Iran considers the IGN as the only appropriate and irreplaceable forum. IGN must continue to be Member States-driven and function on a fully comprehensive and transparent manner.”
Iran has grudges with the UN Security Council since the time of the civilian Iran Air Flight 655 which was downed by the US Navy.
The event triggered an intense international controversy, with Iran condemning the U.S. attack. In mid-July 1988, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati asked the United Nations Security Council to condemn the United States saying the U.S. attack "could not have been a mistake" and was a "criminal act", an "atrocity" and a "massacre". But the UN body seemed to take all that unheeded.
Also bitter for Iran was the UN Security Council Resolution 598 which ended the Iran-Iraq war right at the time when Iran has found the upper hand. Imam Khomeini referred to the adoption of the resolution as "drinking poison”. It was bitter for Iranians to see that there was no mention of a resolution to end the war during the long eight years they were suffering losses to Iraq.
The relations of Iran and the United Nations Security Council found a special significance as the UN body moved to impose sanctions on Iran following the nuclear dispute.
While Iran was crying out against the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States as unjust and expected international organizations to fight them back, the United Nations Security Council recognized those sanctions and even added more to the economic pressure on Iran by adopting a resolution that was to further isolate the Islamic Republic.
It has been said that the Security Council’s strategy toward Iran in the past 67 years can be described and explained through the "profit-seeking approach of big powers.” To understand this strategy, one must first pay due attention to various types of interactions among big powers with veto right as well as their interaction with Iran during the past six decades.
The Security Council’s strategy toward Iran has been closely related to international power blocs and power poles, expediencies as well as strategic give-and-take among big powers, Iran's position in strategic equations of big powers, as well as special relations between Israel and the United States during the past six decades, Behzad Khoshandam, PhD Candidate in International Relations & Expert on International Issues has remarked in an article.
In fact resolutions 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008), 1835 (2008), 1887 (2009), 1929 (2010), and 1984 (2011) which were adopted by the Security Council on Iran's nuclear energy program, have greatly served to pave the way for making interactions between Iran and the international system more challenging following the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States. Meanwhile, it should not be forgotten that before Iran's nuclear case was referred to the Security Council, reactions shown by that council to political developments in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel, had remarkable effects on the national interests of Iran.
All these historical records have testified to Iran that the UN Security Council has not helped the country’s national interests, that being why the Iranian authorities have on many occasions called for reform in the makeup of the body to make it more equitable.
