MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The UN Security Council must accept new permanent members during the 70th UN General Assembly session in New York to stay relevant on the international stage, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Wednesday.
"One should always take advantage of the accident of the calendar and really push for major reforms… If we don’t change the council, we risk a situation where the primacy of the council may be challenged by some of the new emerging countries," Annan, the UN secretary general from 1997 to 2006, told The Guardian.
"I firmly believe that the council should be reformed: it cannot continue as it is. The world has changed and the UN should change and adapt," Annan said.
The Security Council, tasked with maintaining world peace, comprises 15 members, five of which are permanent — the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom.
The need to reform the United Nations organization as a whole and the UN Security Council in particular has been discussed since the early 1990s. The organization’s current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly called for change at the UN.
