Distinguished Co-Chairs,

Thank you for convening the third meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council Reform, focusing on the size of an enlarged Council and its working methods as well as the relationship between the Council and the General Assembly.

Türkiye has aligned itself with the statement delivered by the Permanent Representative of Italy on behalf of the Uniting for Consensus Group. I would like to add the following points in my national capacity.

The current configuration of the Security Council is far from reflecting current realities of the day, especially the increase in the UN membership in the past decades.

There is a general understanding within the membership that the reform should allow for an increase in the number of the members of the Council.

We also all agree on the need for a more transparent, accountable, representative and effective Council.

To make the Council more representative will take more than an increase in membership, but will require an increased possibility for all member states to be seated in the Council.

To make the Council more accountable, periodic review of Council members’ contributions to the maintenance of international peace and security is essential.

And to make the Council more effective, we need a better ratio between the elected and permanent members. This will improve the decision-making process and the working methods of the Council, as proven by the important contribution elected members have made to Council’s work.

Adding new permanent members with veto to the Council will certainly not help on any of these fronts.

Madam Chair,

We are convinced like many others in this room that multilateralism will be strengthened by allowing more members to serve in the Council. We believe that this will also ensure more equitable representation of regional groups, as well as cross-regional groups, in a sustainable manner.

Expansion in the category of permanent members, however, would deteriorate the ratio of member states to elected seats, which would result in fewer opportunities for each member state to serve in the Council. In the current climate of harsh competition for elected seats, we must all think hard if this is really the outcome that we would like to achieve at the end of the reform process. Needless to say that this would be a scenario serving the national interests of a selected few countries.

Esteemed Co-Chairs,

It is the Council’s prerogative to determine and update its working methods. Yet, one must not forget that the Council’s working methods have direct bearing for the membership as a whole.
Many challenges to the better functioning of this Organization are due to the lack of transparency, accountability, effectiveness and democratic nature of the Security Council. Working methods of the Council is at the heart of these shortcomings, with direct impact on the critical undertakings of the UN as a whole.
We remain convinced that the more transparency the Council displays while undertaking its work, the more accountable it will be. The more it shares information, consults and accepts input, the more effective it will become. Moreover, a more responsive Council to the UN membership will be better placed to meet the challenges of an increasingly complex world. It is difficult to say that we have reached this point yet.
We acknowledge that some progress has been achieved in the last couple of years in improving the Council’s working methods, in terms of how the Council communicates with the outside world and the degree to which information about the Council is available and accessible. Yet, there is still ample room for improvement, not least when it comes to more information on Council’s work, timely availability of Council documents, and certainly a decrease in the frequency of closed meetings, to mention a few areas.
Greater transparency is also necessary in the functioning of the Security Council subsidiary organs, which should be encouraged to have a meaningful interaction with the UN membership. The Council should not miss opportunities to get views beyond those of Council member states.
Accountability is also inextricably linked to the veto issue, which lies at the heart of the need for a Security Council reform. We have supported the initiatives aimed at limiting the use of veto in situations of mass atrocities. We also support a larger role for the General Assembly in cases where the Council work is blocked due to the use of veto. If the Council cannot prevent humanitarian tragedies, we need to make full use of all instruments at our disposal to adequately address them. We owe this to future generations.

Madam Chair,

We strongly believe that the Security Council reform should aim for all member states to be better-off at the end of the process.

The widest possible consensus, as stipulated in the decision 62/557 must be our common endeavour.

We should continue to work together constructively in order to identify new convergences rather than deepening divergences. You can count on Türkiye’s support to that end.

Thank you.