ARMENIA SUPPORTS UN REFORM PROGRAM

PanARMENIAN.Net - The essence of Anan's proposal is the expansion of Security Council structure which currently consists of 10 non-permanent and five permanent members - USA, Russia, France, Great Britain and China, all of them having the veto. After the Second World War serious geopolitical changes marked the appearance of other powers on a global and regional scale. Anan proposes to take into account the mentioned fact and submits two variants for consideration. The first variant envisages increased number of permanent members by involving Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Egypt and an African country with black population. According to the second variant the Security Council becomes a three-level organ. The first level are the current five permanent members, the second level - 7-8 "semi-permanent" members elected once in 5 years with a right to be reelected. The third level is the non-permanent members that are changed once in two years by the principle of regional representation.

For Armenia the first variant is more preferable first of all because thanks to the first variant friendly countries will enter the Security Council. We have quite a lot of resources to cooperate with Brazil where there is an influential Armenian community. India opposes to Pakistan - the strategic partner of Azerbaijan. This circumstance of course brings together Deli and Yerevan. As for Egypt, it was perhaps the only Islamic country that supported Armenia during consideration of the issue concerning "security zones" around Karabakh. Besides, quite a number of Armenians live in Egypt. German parliament that is going to accept Armenian genocide can also partner Armenia in concrete situations. Specifically, it is known that official Berlin in every way intends to prevent military actions against Iran by United States.

The second variant proposed by Anan has no bright prospects and may bring to an unpredictable situation. This variant makes it easy for Turkey and Pakistan to enter the Security Council as the two largest Islamic non-Arabian countries. It should be mentioned that in the first variant the Islamic world is represented in the Security Council not by the "Islamic conference" organization with which we have tense relations but with the League of Arab countries with which Yerevan productively cooperates.

The vote of Armenia is only one of 128 votes necessary to approve the program of reforms. For the present there are serious doubts about the approval of the first variant. The thing is that many influential countries have pretensions against countries which Anan sees among members of the Security Council: for instance USA and Italy against Germany, China against Japan, Pakistan against India, Mexico and Argentina against Brazil. Africans cannot decide who is going to represent the "black continent" - UAR, Nigeria or Kenya?

Another important point in the project submitted by Anan is the decrease of the Commission on Human Rights. This initiative is again out of our interests. As it is known, Armenia has been elected to the 53-state commission for two terms. This enabled us to gain certain influence on large countries. Particularly, China had to pay attention on us when the Commission considered their question. This created a base for Armenian diplomacy for efficient cooperation with countries with which we have few things in common. Their votes however mean a lot. Taking into account the circumstance we can suppose that Armenia should not welcome the idea of reduction of the UN Commission on Human Rights. "Polishing" of the program of reforms on the level of representations of member-states will last till the end of summer. The final text of the program should be ready before the September summit for the approval of heads of states. From 2006 UN will start a new life. Will the world become more secure after that? We never know...