UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Tuesday urged the United Nations (UN) Security Council to stay focused on key issues and ensure effective execution of mandate.
"The council needs to focus its resources and energy on addressing major and urgent issues concerning international peace and security, and strengthen the practical effect of its actions," Ma Zhaoxu, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, said at the Security Council Open Debate on Its Working Methods.
Setting artificial time-frames, steamrolling half-baked proposals or initiating text-based negotiations will only undermine the credibility of inter-governmental negotiations and is not helpful to the unity among member states, the envoy noted.
"China attaches great importance to Security Council reform and supports reasonable and necessary reform to increase, as a matter of priority, the representation and voice of developing countries, African countries in particular, so as to enhance the council's authority and efficiency," he said.
"In deliberating on thematic issues, the council needs to coordinate with the GA (General Assembly), ECOSOC (the Economic and Social Council) and other UN bodies so that all can play their respective roles and avoid duplication," he said.
Speaking of the process of the council's decision-making, Ma said that "full consultations are needed with a view to achieving consensus. It is necessary to ensure that all council members have adequate time to examine draft resolutions and draft presidential statements."
"We should do our best to refrain from steamrolling drafts when divisions still remain, seek the broadest possible consensus and safeguard the council's authority and unity," he added.
As for coordination among member states, he noted that it is important to enhance information exchange and value the views of all parties.
"The council needs to more actively engage troop contributing countries (TCCs) and enhance exchanges with them through mechanisms such as the Working Group on Peacekeeping Operations and meetings with TCCs. It should also value the views and concerns of TCCs during mission deployment and mandate adjustment," he said.
"Guided by the principle of member state leadership, China is ready to continue to engage in patient democratic consultations with other member states on the five clusters in a quest for a package solution and the broadest possible consensus," he added.
"We are ready to work with all parties to take stock and find innovative ways to support the improvement of the council's working methods with concrete actions, with a view to enabling the Security Council to conduct its work in a more impartial, efficient, transparent, and democratic manner and play an active and constructive role in maintaining international peace and security," he said.
