The Ministry Of Foreign Affairs Calls Indonesia Still Struggling For UN DK Reform, No Formulation Can Be Accepted

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi while attending the discussion of the Gaza conflict at the UN DK. (Source: Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

JAKARTA - The approval of the United Nations Security Council (UN) is one of the obstacles that Palestine has not recognized as a full member, although the majority of members in the General Assembly (SMU) have expressed support for Palestine, with Indonesia continuing to fight for the reform of the UN agency, said the spokesman for the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Lalu M. Iqbal.

Ambassador Iqbal said, in the UN General High School voting on May 10, as many as 146 countries supported Palestine to become a full member of the United Nations, 25 abstention countries and 9 countries refused, out of a total of 193 high school member countries.

"This means that the majority support Palestine in the high school. However, to be approved or determined, it can be accepted as a full member of the United Nations, approval from the Security Council is needed," he explained in a press statement in Jakarta on May 29.

He explained, it is difficult to get full support from all members of the UN DK, because there are still countries that have veto rights that can disagree with the granting of full membership status recognition to Palestine.

"The decision must be approved by the UN DK. If asked where are the obstacles? The obstacle is at the UN DK," said Iqbal.

Although currently not a member of the UN DK, Indonesia continues to appeal to the 15-member UN agency, with five permanent member states, so that one voice is about the Palestinian issue.

It is known that the UN DK resolution voting mechanism requires at least nine votes to support, out of a total of 15 members of the council, without veto from one of the permanent members of the council, namely the United States, China, Britain, France and Russia.

This mechanism has again drawn attention in the conflict in Gaza that broke out on October 7, 2023, where the members' veto made UN DK fail several times to produce resolutions at the start of the conflict, raising calls to reform the agency.

In fact, UN High School President Dennis Francis and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lamented the failure of UN DK in response to the conflict in Gaza and called for reform of the only UN agency that had such binding decisions.

"I hope I get a brilliant answer," Francis said during a press conference in Seoul, South Korea last year, when asked about UN DK reforms.

"There has been a discussion process regarding the type of membership of the Security Council that wants to be formed. However, official negotiations regarding this have not yet begun," he continued.

"Please remember that the council reform will be a process. This is not an event. We will not wake up one morning, tomorrow morning or next week and find out that there is a new Security Council," he said.

Ambassador Iqbal said Indonesia was one of the first countries to propose reform of the UN DK in 1960 in President Soekarno's speech. Since then, according to him, Indonesia has never stopped fighting for UN reforms and especially UN DK.

"Indonesia is still fighting for the reform of UN DK. However, until now member countries have not found the right formulation of these reforms that can be accepted by all countries," he explained.

"There are those who propose to abolish veto rights, there are permanent countries, semi-permanent countries and so on. Until now, member countries have not agreed on a UN DK reform formula. However, we have continued to carry out proposals and efforts towards the UN DK reform since we first proposed," he said.