Russia is calling for raising efficiency of the UN Security Council with preservation of its compact membership, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said on Tuesday at a meeting of the UN General Assembly devoted to the consideration of the Council’s report on its reform issue.

“Russia’s position on this issue is well known. We are for the preservation of the compact membership of the Security Council and are convinced that the ideas leading to derogation of prerogative of its current permanent members, including the veto institute, are counterproductive,” the Russian diplomat noted. He said the formula of the Security Council reform “should get the maximally wide support of UN members, wider than the legally required majority of two-thirds of votes of UN General Assembly members.”

The Russian representative to the UN also drew attention to the fact that the currently proposed models of the Council reforming so far do not enjoy major support in the UN. “An attempt to force these schemes by putting them to the vote will inevitably polarise the General Assembly,” Churkin believes. “And even if one of the drafts gets the required by UN Charter majority of two-thirds of the votes, the Council will hardly become more authoritative in the eyes of the opposed minority which will most likely include influential states,” the diplomat added.

In this connection the Russian ambassador expressed apprehension that the “meaning of a formally more widely-represented Council will be downgraded by its lower prestige in international affairs.” Therefore, he continued, all states share major responsibility for preventing a situation in which ill-conceived steps aimed at reforming the Security Council may result in the polarisation and split among UN member states and consequently in weakening of the UN instead of its strengthening.

Touching upon the work of the UN Security Council Churkin expressed the view that it is necessary in this work “to maintain a reasonable balance between transparency and efficiency realising that the main thing is to build up the Council’s potential in the sphere of the implementation of its prerogatives under the UN Charter to support international peace and security.”