Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq said on Tuesday that the stalemate in Kashmir, Iraq, Palestine, and Libya raised pertinent questions about the role of United Nations in conflict resolution and the future of the world body.

He was speaking to Ms Gerda Verburg, the UN assistant secretary general and global coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, who called on him at the Parliament House.

Sadiq said that the downtrodden, under-nourished and poverty stricken people of the world had attached their hopes to the United Nations which had yet to live up to its own charter.

He highlighted that the United Nations stood as a silent spectator while India reneged on UN resolutions and launched violence, fake encounters, enforced disappearances, rape, murders, and the use of pellet guns against defenseless Kashmiris. “The aggression and blatant violation of human rights in Kashmir to silence the voice for self-determination of Kashmiris continue unabated. The role of United Nations has been frustrating,” he said.

Sadiq stated that any double standard at UN forum would risk the future of international cooperation for peaceful resolution of conflicts and subsequently genuine human development. He underlined the need for justice and equality at the UN forum and added that UN must not be utilised by certain states to torment
others.

Referring to the unending and vicious cycle of violence and instability in the Muslim world and the role of UN, the speaker remarked that the failure of United Nations to prevent the invasion of Iraq and Libya under the false claims of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and subsequent mass destruction in the region caused by the invasion had discredited the world body. He remarked that people had expressed immense skepticism about use of chemical weapons in Syria as well.

The speaker underlined the need for a serious debate at UN forum on international support to Al Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban and other such groups who disrupted the global peace and security. He added that UN was not just a debating club rather a world body committed and mandated to address pressing global challenges.

While discussing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the speaker underlined the need for a unified global action against malnutrition in all its forms and urged the United Nations assistant secretary general to expedite efforts for fast-tracking progress on achievement of the goals.

He informed the UN official that Pakistan’s Parliament had been the first in the world to establish a dedicated SDGs Secretariat. “Our Parliament is the first ‘green parliament’ in the world that provides surplus energy to the national grid,” he said.

The United Nations assistant secretary general congratulated the speaker on enabling Pakistan’s Parliament to switch over to solar power for meeting its energy needs. She remarked that Pakistan’s Parliament offered lessons for all parliaments to promote sustainable energy.

She assured the speaker that the United Nations was committed to scaling up efforts in combating malnutrition, food insecurity and poverty across the globe. She further added that enhancing the capacity of the parliamentarians and parliamentary secretariat is highly imperative for accelerating progress on achievement of the SDGs.