UN will become irrelevant without reforms: S Jaishankar

The United Nations Security Council reforms is like a “hard nut”, but hard nuts can be cracked, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in Sydney on Tuesday as he cautioned that the world body will become “irrelevant” without much-delayed reforms.

Jaishankar made the remarks while responding to questions after his address at the Lowy Institute on the growing importance of India’s relationship with Australia and the interests that both countries share as members of the security-focused Quad.

“Well, it’s a hard nut but hard nuts can be cracked,” Mr Jaishankar said while responding to a question on UN Security Council reforms.

Jaishankar said that there are continents which actually feel that the Security Council process does not take into account their problems.

“I think that’s hugely damaging to the UN. So one of the developments this time, in fact, has been a very explicit recognition by President Joe Biden of the need to actually reform the UN which is not a small development, but we need to get it because we all know why reform has been blocked for so many years,” he said.

“We completely understand that this is not something which is going to be done easily…but it’s something which has to be done. Otherwise, we will end up frankly, with an increasingly irrelevant United Nations,” he cautioned.