Reaffirming it's support to the U.N.'s “flagship activity”-peacekeeping-Pakistan has called for clear, realistic and achievable mandates for peacekeeping operations with adequate resources. “For suffering humanity in a conflict zone, the sight of a blue helmet becomes a beacon of hope,” Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. “Across the globe, this beacon has illuminated the lives of millions by enhancing the glow of peace and by bringing hope for ending their pains, anguish and sorrows,” he said during a thematic debate on UN peacekeeping operations, according to a report of the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP). Underscoring Islamabad's long-time support for United Nations peacekeeping, Ambassador Haroon said there were today some 11,000 Pakistan's uniformed personnel serving in peace operations. Over the past five decades, some 114 Pakistani peacekeepers had lost their lives in the field, including an engineer-soldier Gulsher, who died just two days ago in Cote d'Ivoire. He went on to say that United Nations peacekeeping operations faced three distinct challenges: expectations were high to maintain the trajectory of past successes, together with a surge in demand for peacekeeping in diverse situations; the imperatives of forging coherent and coordinated responses to conflict situations, based on objective analysis and the formulation of clear, realistic and achievable mandates; and omnipresent challenges to conceive a seamless transition from peacekeeping to peace-building. The basic inspiration to ensuring long-term success must be derived from the United Nations Charter, which provided an edifice of legitimacy to our peacekeeping efforts, the Pakistan envoy said. Respect for the Charter must not be compromised at the altar of political expediency. Peacekeeping reform was a continuing exercise, and as the Organization was marking the tenth anniversary of the release of the report, which is named after former UN Under-Secretary-General Lakhdar Brahimi, it was time to examine current strategies in light of that landmark document, he said. “As much as the UN's unique role brings acceptance to its peacekeeping activity, the success of peacekeeping operations have in turn brought credibility to the World body.”
