United Nations, Oct 22: UN secretary general Kofi Annan has asserted that the United States and United Nations need each other and that their relationship should be seen as one of "productive interdependence". Delivering the ninth annual H J Heinz Company Foundation distinguished lecture at the University of Pittsburgh yesterday, Annan said US and UN could not have achieved some of their objectives without each other's help.
Diplomats consider his remarks significant in the context of his recent criticism of the United States on its refusal to give the UN an independent role in Iraq. It is not enough to denounce unilateralism, unless the international community faces up to the concerns that make some states feel "uniquely vulnerable" since it is those concern that drive them to take unilateral action, he said.
"It is up to all those who believe in a collective system of security to show that these concerns, such a fear of terrorists using weapons of mass destruction, can still be addressed more effectively through collective action," he said. Agreeing that there is a widespread fear in the international community that some of the key assumptions on which international order has been based since 1945 might break down, Annan said he too shared these concerns.
"The war in Iraq upset a great many people because they saw two permanent members of the Security Council taking military action without support of the council as a whole or of the wider membership of the UN," he said. Bureau Report