Iran commander calls on NAM to challenge UN veto right

A senior Iranian military commander has called on the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to challenge the UN Security Council’s right of veto during its summit in Tehran.

“A global justice-based sustainable peace is a NAM ideal whose realization requires an atmosphere in which the UN could be pushed to reconsider the veto right exercised by the permanent members of its Security Council,” Iran’s Armed Forces Deputy Chief of Staff Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said on Monday.

Veto-wielders include the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, all empowered to unilaterally block any resolution.

Gen. Jazayeri noted that the power of veto was in stark contrast with the philosophy behind the establishment of UN and a deterrent to the realization of justice-based lasting peace in the world.

“The United Nations was founded on the ashes of the World War II by the winners [of the war], known as Allies, and now 60 years on, … the veto right is a flagrant case of discrimination and contradiction which the international community should decide about it as soon as possible,” he said.

He added that the NAM governments can win an international consensus regarding the “expropriation of arrogant and domineering powers from adopting unjust and oppressive decisions against independent states”, and find a solution to spell an end to the world’s unipolarism.

“Never have the conditions been so conducive to adopting anti-arrogant and strong positions [in a bid] to tell off the White House statesmen and their European supporters. This hidden will could grow into a public determination and deliver heavy shock on the fading body of arrogant and tyrannical powers,” said the general.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected to address NAM summit this week.

An international organization with 120 member states and 21 observer countries, NAM is considered as not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc.

NAM’s purpose, as stated in the Havana Declaration of 1979, is to ensure “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries.”