In his speech to the UN Security Council yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky not only spoke about the problems of his country, which has faced aggression and genocide, but also effectively supported Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s program proposals for UN reform. We wrote about Erdogan’s proposals when he made them last year (https://golosislama.com/news.php?id=40204). Essentially, these proposals boil down to the abolition of the veto power of the members of the UN Security Council, the expansion of its composition to 20 permanent members, and its election in the UN General Assembly by all the countries of the world, taking into account the obligatory representation of its various parts (Islamic world, Africa, Europe, etc.). All this is proposed as an alternative to the current system of the Security Council as a closed club of the countries that won the last world war and created a new world order under their own influence.
Now let’s see what President Zelensky said in his speech yesterday:
«The purpose of the UN is to preserve peace and prevent violations. But the first article of the Charter has already been violated. If the first article is violated, what is the point of the other articles? The current result of Russia’s actions is the most terrible crime of all times.
The Russian leadership is behaving like colonizers in ancient times — they intend to turn Ukrainians into silent slaves, plunder villages, steal food, tear off golden earrings, and use vetoes in the Security Council. We cannot let this go unpunished.
If this situation continues, countries will rely only on the power of arms to ensure their security, and the UN can simply be shut down.
Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to shut down the UN? If not, action must be taken immediately. We must carry out a reform so that the right of veto is not a right to death.
The most important thing now is to transform the UN system. I propose holding a conference in Kyiv to discuss how to reform the world security system, how to strengthen international law.
At the conference we will discuss how to guarantee the borders and sovereignty of states, how to strengthen international law.
But if you don’t know how to make a decision, you have two options — either eliminate Russia as a source of war, so that it does not block decisions related to its own aggression, and then we will do everything possible to establish peace.
The second option is for you to stand aside. If you are only capable of talking, there is no other option. Ukraine needs peace, Europe needs peace, the whole world needs peace.
So Zelensky is essentially saying the same thing as Erdogan — the UN in its current form is not viable and cannot address the challenges facing humanity. Like Erdogan, he proposes abolishing the veto power of UN Security Council members. And not long ago, he proposed essentially the same thing as Erdogan — if the Turkish leader proposed expanding the number of permanent members of the Security Council to 20 countries, Zelensky proposed creating a union of 24 countries (U24) that would take responsibility for global security. With Turkey’s participation, of course.
Thus, the views of Turkey and Ukraine on the reform of the world order are essentially the same. This once again shows that these countries are not situational allies, but see the architecture of the new regional and global order in the same way.