India put its trust on multilateralism and took the Kashmir “aggression issue” to the United Nations but others made it a matter of “accession” for geopolitical reasons, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday.
He made the remarks while elaborating on need for having coexistence between national interests and multilateralism at a session of the Raisina Dialogue.
“That was always the case. Look at our own example. Very literally in our first year of Independence, we put our trust in multilateralism and took the Kashmir aggression issue to UN and others made it into an accession issue and they did it for geopolitical reasons,” Jaishankar said.
He was asked whether values are looking less important in the current geopolitical landscape as countries compromise on principles but never on interests.
“If you say people are playing multilateralism, they always did. We have grown up. It is not that we should be against multilateralism,” he said.
Responding to a question on reform of UN, Jaishankar, citing globalisation, said the “fact is the world trading rules have been gamed”. “If you look at the last 5 years, all big issues, in a way, we have not been able to find a multilateral solution. So, the results or lack of results demonstrates the case for reform,” he said.
“But I think there is a larger global conversation and global rebalancing as well which is bigger than the UN, which is really (about) whose rules, how does it work because what has also happened in many cases is the rules have been gamed,” he said.
“We speak about globalisation for example. The fact is world trading rules have been gamed. And we have a lot of our challenges today that also emanate from how countries have used that for their benefit at the expense of the international system,” he said.
He suggested that the “short-sighted” approach of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council is holding back forward movement in the long-pending reform of the global body.
He said the “biggest” opponent for reform of UNSC is not a Western country, in remarks seen as an oblique reference to China.
He said sentiments for changes in UN system is “very strong, but the challenge has been to get the concurrence for it from certain quarters”. “If you are going to ask 5 countries saying would you mind changing the rules that you would have less power, guess what the answer is going to be,” he said. “If they are wise, the answer would be something else. If they are short-sighted, the answer is what it is today,” he said.
