Kuwait fully understands the position taken by Saudi Arabia regarding membership in the UN Security Council and shares Saudi dismay over the Council's remissness in taking up its responsibilities vis-@-vis Arab and Islamic issues and causes, said a Kuwaiti official here. Addressing the 68th session of the UN General Assembly last night on the issue of equitable representation in the UNSC, Kuwait's UN envoy ambassador Mansour Al-Otaibi said any reforms to the security council should be part of an overhaul of all of the UN's apparatuses and agencies. He said that representation in the council should reflect adequately the aspirations of all UN members to one day sit on the council and should take into account the geopolitical changes that have occurred to the world since the establishment of the UN in 1945. The UNSC, he further said, should follow a course of work more in tune with the necessity for transparency in the decision-making process, in particular where the tool of the Veto was concerned. The veto privilege should be exercised within streamlined parameters such as resorting to it only in cases dealing with the Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, ambassador Al-Otaibi said.
