UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has called for strengthening the role and capacity of UN peacekeeping in hotspots around the world, saying the missions must be part of the effort to address and resolve underlying causes of conflict that the blue helmets monitor.
“A peacekeeping mission must be part of an overall ‘political strategy’ that seeks to address and resolve the underlying causes of conflict and violence — the presence of criminal and terrorist organizations, environmental factors, development deficits, ethnic and tribal differences,” Ambassador Munir Akram told the General Assembly’d Fourth Committee, which deal with special political and decolonization issues.
Speaking in the debate on United Nations peacekeeping operations, which mark their seventy-fifth anniversary this year, the Pakistani envoy said that the U.N.’s flagship activity was a “success story.” Pakistan, he said, has contributed more than 230,000 personnel to 47 peacekeeping missions over the years, in addition to hosting one of the first such operations — the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which observes the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) in disputed Jammu and Kashmir. –Agencies
