A panel of the United Nations eminent persons which recommended far-reaching reforms to revamp and boost the ability of the world body on Tuesday called on the world body to "redouble its efforts' to resolve festering Kashmir, Palestine and Korean peninsula disputes which feed the new threats to the international peace and security.
In a letter sent to Secretary General Kofi Annan, the Chairman of the blue ribbon panel former Prime Minister of Thailand Anand Panyarachun said no amount of systematic changes to the way that United Nations handled both old and new threats to peace and security would enable it to discharge effectively its role under the charter if efforts were not redoubled to resolve a number of long-standing disputes which continued to fester and fed the new threats we now faced.
He said, "foremost among these are the issues of Palestine, Kashmir and the Korean peninsula," he added.
Panyarachun regretted although the mandate given the panel precluded any in-depth examination of individual conflicts but asserted the panel members "would be remiss " if they failed to point out the disputes which undermined the working of the organisation.
Underscoring the "unresolved regional disputes in South Asia, North-East Asia and the Middle-East continued to threaten international peace and Security," the panel report said those disputes might unravel 40 years of efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and more than 75 years of efforts to banish the scourge of biological and chemical weapons."
"In turn, the inter-state rivalry in some regions fuels and exacerbate internal wars, making them more difficult to bring to a close, the panel said.
The report also warned, "War and ongoing instability in Iraq and Palestine have fuelled extremism in the parts of Muslim world and the West."
The report said Palestinian issue "is complex and multidimensional and defies any simplistic categorisation."
It asserted "one cannot ignore the ability of the extremists groups to foster perceptions within west and within the Muslim world of cultural and religious antagonism between them, the dangers of which is left unchecked are profound."
Addressing the legitimacy of the use of force, a source of crippling tensions at the United Nations last year when the United States was seeking Security Council authorisation to go to war in Iraq, the panel said it found no reason to amend the United Nations charter's Article 51, which restricted the use of force to countries that had been attacked.
The report said that that language did not constitute, as some had charged summons on nations to wait to be attacked and that many countries had exercised the right to go on the attack themselves if they felt threatened.
But it acknowledged that a new problem had arisen because of terrorism "where the threat is not imminent but still claimed to be real for example, the acquisition, with allegedly hostile intent, of nuclear weapons-making capability."
It said if the arguments for such "anticipatory self defence" were good ones, they should be put to the Security Council, which would have the power to authorise military action.
In addition to Panyarachun- the chairman, the panel members included former prime minister of Russia Yevgeny Primakov, former foreign minister of China Qian Qichen, former foreign minister of Australia Gareth Evans, secretary general of the League of Arab States Amre Moussa of Egypt, former prime minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland, former secretary general of the Organisation of American States Juao Baena Soares of Brazil, former British ambassador to the United Nations David Hannay, a member of the French senate Robert Badinter, Satish Nambiar of India, Nafis Sadik of Pakistan and former US national security advisor under the first President Bush Brent Scowcroft.
The proposed amendments to the charter, overhauling of the Security Council, must be approved by two-thirds of the 191 United Nations member states and ratified by the legislatures of two-third of the governments, including all five permanent members.
The report will be formally presented to UN-Chief Kofi Annan on Thursday morning.