African, Latin American and Asian countries should be included to the UN Security Council to ensure that the body responds to the new global realities, Sergey Ordzhonikidze, former UN Under-Secretary-General from 2002 to 2011, told Sputnik.
"I believe that the Security Council ... should include Asian, African and Latin American states. That is, the Security Council should reflect the new realities of the world," Ordzhonikidze said.
He stressed that in 1945, when the UN was created, scarcely anyone could imagine that such states as India, Brazil, and South Africa could join the Security Council.
Yet now it is a reality – these are new centers of power on their continents, which, surely, must take part in addressing the global problems of the world, the ex-diplomat pointed out.
According to Ordzhonikidze, the current composition of the Security Council has a Western-centric bias. At the same time, the West primarily wants to make it even more Western-centric by adding Germany and Japan.
"This is nothing new. But let's see, why are the interests of Asian, African and Latin American countries totally ignored? It is clear for what reason – they have their own vision of many international cardinal problems and their own position, unlike the military and political allies of the US, such as Germany and Japan," he underlined.
The former UN under secretary general noted that at present there is no alternative to the UN, which, however, cannot work if states have opposing views on international problems.
In May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking at the Security Council, proposed accelerating the reform by increasing the participation of Asian, African and Latin American states.
"The current over-representation of the West in this main body of the UN undermines the principle of multilateralism," Lavrov stressed.
In 1945, after the end of World War II, representatives of 50 countries gathered in San Francisco to draft a charter for the United Nations.
The delegates based their work on proposals worked out by representatives of the UK, China, the Soviet Union and the United States at an international conference of the anti-Hitler coalition at the Dumbarton Oaks Mansion in Washington in August-October 1944.
Today, 193 countries are members of the UN. In July 2011, South Sudan became the 193rd full member of the UN.