ISLAMABAD: Pakistan told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday countries contributing to UN peacekeeping missions should be given a greater voice in decision-making processes, saying they carry the burden in the field but are excluded from crucial choices that impact the operations.
Pakistan has been one of the UN’s leading troop contributors for over seven decades, having sent more than 250,000 of its personnel serving in 48 missions around the world. The country also hosts one of the oldest UN missions, the Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan deployed in Jammu and Kashmir.
At least 182 Pakistani peacekeepers have died while serving under the UN flag.
“Troop- and police-contributing countries, which shoulder the burden in the field, remain mostly excluded from crucial decisions,” Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad told an open debate on the future of peace operations, co-sponsored by Pakistan and Denmark. “This divide between ‘mandate drafters’ and ‘mandate implementers’ must end.”
Ahmad maintained UN peacekeeping, long hailed as one of multilateralism’s success stories, was now under siege, starved of resources and constrained in mandates.
