SAEDNEWS: Baqaei says defining the UN solely as a body to prevent wars between major powers is misleading and dangerous, stressing the Charter’s ban on the use of force between states.
According to Saednews, In a post on X, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei invoked former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld’s warning against turning the United Nations into a passive conference mechanism serving great-power diplomacy, instead of a dynamic institution capable of safeguarding the security of smaller nations.
Baqaei argued that Hammarskjöld devoted his tenure to this principle.
He said the current Secretary-General now appears to be reducing the UN’s mission to little more than preventing wars between superpowers.
According to Baqaei, such a limited interpretation is both misleading and dangerous. He argued that it effectively distorts Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, marginalizes most of the organization’s members, provides justification for numerous conflicts, weakens the principles on which the UN was founded, and, most seriously, risks overlooking atrocities committed by powerful states against weaker countries.
Under such an interpretation, Baqaei noted, conflicts and atrocities in Korea, Vietnam, the Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan and Gaza could all be portrayed as successes.
Baqaei concluded by questioning whether such an approach is appropriate for a Secretary-General whose tenure is approaching its final months.
