According to a report on NDTV:
“Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi on Sunday backed Saudi Arabia’s rejection of a seat on the United Nations Security Council, saying the diplomatic body had failed in its responsibility towards the Arab world.
“Arabi told reporters that Saudi Arabia was right to object to the Security Council’s management methods and the fact that it failed in its responsibility to secure international peace, “which it is not doing at all.”
“He said Arab states, including Palestine and Syria, were the worst affected by the Security Council’s weakness in the last six decades.
“His remarks come a day after Arab nations urged Saudi Arabia to reverse its decision to reject a seat on the 15-nation Security Council.”
According to Arabnews.com:
“Saudi Arabia stunned the world on Friday (Oct.18) by declining to occupy its recently won seat at the United Nations Security Council. The announcement came a few weeks after it had declined its turn to deliver its annual speech before the UN General Assembly. It was the first time that Saudi Arabia had decided to skip the speech-making at the UN General Assembly annual opening.
“But declining a UNSC seat was unprecedented. Saudi Arabia was one of the UN founding members in April 1945, in San Francisco, where Prince Faisal ibn Abdul Aziz, its then foreign minister, represented his country in Charter-signing ceremony. At the time, the world gave a collective sigh of relief that superpowers of the time agreed to a new world order that was supposed to avoid the fate of the previous order, led by the League of Nations, which had failed miserably to maintain peace and security.”
The statement issued by Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry gave a number of reasons, including the following for rejecting the seat:
“Current working methods, mechanisms and double standard of the Security Council have prevented it from shouldering its responsibilities in maintaining international peace and security.
“All international efforts at reforming the UNSC, in which Saudi Arabia has taken part, have failed.
“UNSC failure to resolve the Palestinian question over the past 65 years, during which several wars have erupted and threatened international peace and security.
“UNSC failure to declare the Middle East an area free of weapons of mass destruction.”
All four points centered on the fact that Security Council’s membership and working methods reflect a bygone era and are no longer in sync with reality.
