South Africa’s ambassador to Russia and Belarus, Mzuvukile Jeff Maketuka, believes that Russia should lead the reform of the UN Security Council by acting from within, he told RIA Novosti
“We expect Russia, as a member of the G5, to move from words to deeds, because deeds are better than words. Russia should take the lead in this reform of the UN Security Council. We are doing our part. We are not expecting French President Emanuel Macron or US President Joe Biden to start – no… But we hope that Putin and Lavrov’s calls are a step in the right direction. We will follow developments and want to see programmatic steps”, – he said.
The South African ambassador, however, said he did not expect much change in this direction any time soon.
“If you look at global politics, the balance of power, I am not sure that will change any time soon. Because the multilateral mechanism has started to lag behind in the last 7-10 years. Countries have started to think more about their interests. Multilateralism has practically lost its position… Therefore, it is unclear what should make the permanent members of the UN Security Council suddenly start changing the system”, – the ambassador stressed.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking about the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, noted that it was necessary to think how to make the organization more balanced without cancelling the veto, as this would destroy the foundation of the organization.
For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Western countries no longer need to add seats to the UN Security Council, while African and Latin American countries, on the contrary, do.