Vietnam supports increase in the UN Security Council's membership
Vietnam supports an increase in the membership of the United Nations' Security Council in both categories: permanent and non-permanent. The country also supports measures aimed at ensuring broader participation, more democracy, accountability and transparency in the Council's work, said Ambassador Le Luong Minh, Permanent Representative of the Vietnamese Mission to the United Nations, at the Joint Debate of the 59th UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
He stressed that developing countries from different continents should be able to join the Council as permanent and non-permanent members.
The Vietnamese Ambassador affirmed Vietnam's willingness to actively contribute to the reform of the Security Council. "Reform of the Council is urgent and inevitable and reform must be carried out in a way that will make the Council more representative and more democratic. Vietnam shares the view of the majority of the Members States that reform of the Security Council must include expansion of the Council's membership with due attention to the need to ensure more adequate representation by developing countries and improvement in its decision making process," he said.
He expressed high appreciation of the efforts made the Security Council in 2003, saying "the past year has been really a year of hard work for the Security Council as reflected in the great number of meetings it has held and a wide range of complex and urgent issues it has had to tackle, from escalated conflicts and violence to terrorism and humanitarian crisis. The Council has adopted 59 resolutions and made 45 Presidential Statements."
He added that the Vietnamese delegation acknowledged evolution in some of the Council's working methods and practice.
The Ambassador pointed to the need to provide non-members of the Council with necessary information about the preparation of resolutions and decisions of the Council. He reaffirmed Vietnam's candidature for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council for the 2008-2009 tenure. (VNA)
