India attacks UN council for failing to meet 'obligations'

India has lambasted the 15-member Security Council for failing to meet its obligation of maintaining international peace and security, saying it is the result of its "unrepresentative" character and consequent lack of political will.

In a sharp criticism of the council's inaction as "tragic events" unfolded in Lebanon and the peace process in the Mideast was derailed, Indian Ambassador Nirupam Sen likened the council to Emperor Nero, who did nothing as Rome burnt.

"The main problem that besets peacekeeping is not lack of resources or even personnel but an unrepresentative Security Council which lacks the political will to act and when it does, does so in a manner that is entirely inadequate," he told the United Nations General Assembly.

Asking the council members to shore up participation in peacekeeping operations, Sen said it was a "distressing reflection" of their unwillingness to share the burden of maintaining international peace that most troops in the operations were contributed by developing nations.

Stressing that reform of the United Nations, which the major powers were demanding, would be incomplete without the expansion of the council, he said it needed to be made more representative and effective if it was to perform the role mandated to it by the charter.

Criticising the five permanent members for hindering UN reforms, Sen said, "What some of the P-5 suffer from, a virtue they share with the Russian Tsars, the French Bourbons and the English Stuarts, is a reification of the present, an unwillingness to accept that institutions can be different."