UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon tackles an array of troublesome
issues from the political organization's reform to the Darfur
crisis
By WANG GANGYI, WANG YANJUAN AND CHEN WEN
After nine months in office, United Nations Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon appears to be more optimistic, encouraged and confident
about solving some of the thorny, long-standing issues both at the
UN and in the world. Some recent developments have given him good
reasons to be so.
In an exclusive interview with
Beijing Review in his office
at UN headquarters in New York, Ban said he has adopted significant
measures to reform the UN, with some already successful and some
still ongoing.
The successful ones he cited are restructuring the peacekeeping
operation department and reforming the disarmament sector. His next
focus will be on how to strengthen "preventive diplomacy capacity,"
as he has been doing in handling some regional issues.
Ban said that "communicating and consulting" with all the 192
member states of the world's largest intergovernmental organization
is the most difficult part in carrying out his reform, which
"involves time and energy." But the UN secretary general is quick
to add that he is very much committed to do that.?
On the world front, progress has been made on Darfur, an issue that has confounded world
leaders for four years -- and one in which Ban has taken a strong
personal interest since he took office. His hectic efforts over the
past few months to build support for his initiatives to help
resolve the Darfur situation included a high-level meeting at the
UN in September and a weeklong trip to Sudan, Chad and Libya
earlier the same month. After these meetings, Ban had garnered
enough regional and international support that he decided to host
the peace talks on Darfur planned for later this month in Tripoli,
the Libyan capital.
Though the UN secretary general is concerned that some of the
leading groups in the Darfur Region are still showing reluctance,
he has urged them to participate in the talks and made it clear
that non-participation of any individual group should not be the
criteria to judge if the talks succeed or fail. "So, we will
convene the meeting as planned," he said.
Contrary to those who had accused China of inadequate action on
the Darfur issue, Ban said that the country has been playing a
"very constructive role." China has dispatched an engineering team
to Darfur and appointed a special envoy who has been working very
closely with the international community, he said.
The so-called boycott of the Beijing Olympic Games based on that accusation
is not warranted and is misplaced, the UN secretary general said.
"We are looking forward to the most successful hosting of the
Olympic Games next year," he added.
The UN secretary general said China is a key player in the
United Nations and that maintaining a strong partnership between
the United Nations and China is very important, particularly to the
United Nations.
Advancing the global agenda on climate change was another major
achievement of the UN secretary general. On September 24, the day
before this year’s UN General Assembly general debate, Ban chaired
a high-level meeting to secure political commitment and build
momentum for the UN Climate Change Conference scheduled on December
3-14 in Bali, where negotiations on a new international climate
agreement should begin.
More than 80 heads of state and government, with representatives
from 168 countries, attended the one-day event in September, making
it the largest meeting ever of world leaders on climate change. "I
was very much encouraged by the result of the high-level meeting,"
Ban said.
According to Ban the leaders have agreed that now is the time
for the international community to take action and that the
appropriate forum of negotiation should be the United Nations and
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
"On the basis of this in Bali, I hope we'll be able to
reinvigorate the old maps and directions of our negotiations," he
said.
Ban described the joint declaration signed at the second
inter-Korean summit earlier this month as a step forward in
solidifying the ongoing exchanges and cooperation, which would help
further the national reconciliation of and build mutual trust
between South Korea and North Korea. Ban was one of the architects
of South Korea's so-called "sunshine policy" toward North Korea
before he became the UN secretary general. The first inter-Korean
summit was held in June 2000. He said he is "quite confident that
the implementation process will be much smoother" this time.
Ban was equally encouraged by the agreement signed at the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear
issue on October 3 in Beijing. "This is much further on the basis
of the February agreement this year," he said. As South Korea's
former minister of foreign affairs and trade, Ban used to be a key
player in the six-party talks that are aimed at finding a
diplomatic solution to the dispute over Pyongyang's nuclear
program.
(Beijing Review Reporting from New York October
16, 2007)
