The United Nations Security Council is being increasingly criticized for failing to bring peace to many conflicts raging worldwide today. As the monthly rotating president of the UN’s most important body, Pakistan is gambling on the “peaceful settlement of disputes” tool in the UN Charter to slow the Council’s dwindling relevance.
From Africa to Europe to the Mideast, the Council’s legally binding resolutions are progressively ignored, and calls and condemnations by the 15 members hardly translate to meaningful effects for civilians who are crushed under heavy military actions.
“We believe that this issue has assumed greater importance in view of recent developments,” Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, said in an interview with PassBlue. He pointed to a general acknowledgement among its member states that the Council no longer has the stature to carry out its core mission of maintaining international peace and security. That role could even extend as far back to the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir.
To rectify the underuse of the Charter tool, Pakistan will be holding a signature debate on July 22 on the peaceful settlement of disputes.
The UN is often credited with preventing a third world war, yet its own agencies and member states are now warning that the risk of such a catastrophe is growing. The Council is struggling to respond decisively to protracted crises. In many cases, diplomatic progress has come from outside its chamber.
All the resolutions, for example, adopted by the Council to end the current Israeli military conflict in Gaza have not been implemented, or, at best, have been partly implemented. Even the short-lived ceasefire earlier this year came through back-channel negotiations outside the UN. Privately and publicly, diplomats admit that the Council’s response to conflicts is performative and often words on paper with no specific follow-up actions.
Ahmad disagreed that UN resolutions are merely words on paper, but he said that there is a lack of “concerted efforts” and “political will” on the part of countries that bear the greatest responsibility in enforcing Council decisions — that is, the permanent members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
“The resolution of the Security Council has weight,” he said, “and in order for that weight to have its effect and to bring peace and stability, more important than the adoption of that resolution is the actual act of implementing that resolution.”
Richard Gowan, the UN director at the International Crisis Group think tank, said the topic of resolving disputes peacefully resonates strongly with many UN member states. Across the organization, there’s a sense that the Security Council has not made full use of the UN Charter’s provisions for diplomatic conflict resolution. With the UN marking its 80th anniversary in September, numerous speakers participating in the annual General Assembly debate will call for a renewed focus on this underused UN tool.
“But I can also see speakers causing some discomfort by raising specific cases such as Ukraine and Gaza,” Gowan said, “and indeed Kashmir, and asking why the Council is diplomatically irrelevant case by case.”
Perhaps no crisis illustrates the gap between words and action better than the Council’s resolution of April 21, 1948, which called for a plebiscite (held under the auspices of the UN) to allow the people in the contested region of Jammu and Kashmir to determine their own future. The resolution, approved more than seven decades ago, came after the partition of British India into India and Pakistan, sparking the territorial conflict over the region.
The plebiscite has never happened.
According to Ahmad, it was India’s gradual withdrawal from its commitments that has stalled the peace process. “The Security Council resolutions were clear,” he said. “But one of the parties went back on its word, and the Kashmiri people have been denied their right to self-determination ever since.” (PassBlue asked the Indian mission to the UN for a comment but got no reply by deadline.)
The Kashmir dispute remains not only unresolved but also out of the media spotlight until flareups occur. In August 2019, the Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, revoked the special status, or autonomy, of the territory, guaranteed under Article 370 of India’s constitution. The Supreme Court ordered that the Muslim-majority territory be restored as a state quickly.
Ayesha Jalal, a history professor at Tufts University, said that New Delhi’s move fundamentally changed the dynamics in Kashmir. By revoking the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir and designating Ladakh as a union territory, India triggered major geostrategic consequences.
“Whatever the legal niceties,” Jalal said, “the real impact is on the suspension of any mutually accepted political link between the chosen representatives of the people of Kashmir and India.”
Unlike the Palestinian issue, which has remained a regular debate topic in the Security Council since the 1940s, the Kashmir dispute has largely been avoided in the UN by diplomats and the Secretariat. From the ’70s until 2019, Gowan said, Council members refrained from bringing it up until China reintroduced it after India’s decision to revoke Kashmir’s autonomous status.
“Council members at the time were taken completely off-balance,” Gowan said. “They hadn’t done their homework on Kashmir as they never expected it to come up. The Kashmir question divides the Council in some unusual ways, too. China is on Pakistan’s side, but both Russia and the US lean towards India.”
The July 22 debate on peaceful resolution of disputes will not immediately change how the Council operates. But Pakistan is using it to reignite a conversation on how diplomacy is still a viable alternative to the use of military force and that the Council needs to bridge the widening gap between words and deeds. UN Secretary-General António Guterres is expected to brief at the high-level debate; Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, will chair the session.
Each month, PassBlue profiles UN ambassadors as their countries assume the Council presidency. As Pakistan takes its first rotating presidency in its two-year term, ending in December 2026, PassBlue spoke with Ahmad about what the Council can do about its own eroding relevance. His comments have been edited and condensed for clarity.
PassBlue: What are Pakistan’s signature events for July?
Ahmad: We’ve scheduled two signature events. The main one is focusing on the peaceful settlement of disputes. We have brought forward this idea because we have seen in recent months a growing interest among the general [UN] membership on peaceful resolution of disputes, going back to the those provisions of the [UN] Charter, particularly Chapter 6, which provides all the tools that can help the UN and the Security Council.
The second signature event [July 24] is in the context of the UN’s cooperation with regional and subregional organizations, a very important development in recent decades. There is cooperation between the Council and the African Union; the European Union similarly; and the Arab League and OIC [Organization of Islamic Cooperation]. There is ongoing cooperation, especially in thematic issues, peacekeeping, peace-building, prevention, conflict prevention, counterterrorism, interfaith dialogue and dialogue among civilizations. All these issues are of common interest to the UN.
PassBlue: I’d like to follow up on the signature debate focusing on the peaceful resolution of disputes. Given recent global events, this conversation feels especially timely. However, there has been growing criticism that the Security Council is falling short of its core mandate to maintain international peace and security. Many observers say the Council has struggled to fulfill this responsibility. What’s your response?
Ahmad: This is the main reason there is increased expectation from the general [UN] membership to go back to these basic tools provided in the Charter . . . , and the role of the secretary-general’s good offices, all in the context of conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy. We are seeing longstanding disputes which remain unresolved. In many cases, there are resolutions of the Security Council that have not been implemented. So, it’s not that something was not done or never done, but that these frameworks were not implemented. Almost everyone is saying that the threat or use of force to try to resolve issues is unacceptable. It’s against the principles and objectives of the Charter.
PassBlue: Ambassador, there’s been much discussion about how the Security Council can return to its basic role of maintaining peace and security. Yet, if we look at recent conflicts, whether in Gaza or between India and Pakistan, most ceasefires or resolutions have been achieved outside the UN framework. So, is it time for the Council to reform how it handles its core responsibility? With broader UN reforms already on the table, should the Council’s inability to deliver tangible peace results in the last decade be part of that conversation?
Ahmed: I would like to recall that this was not always the case. If you take some of the major conflicts that have been addressed by the UN and the Security Council for many years — the Jammu and Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, the Palestinian issue, Lebanon and Syria — you would see that the UN and the Security Council engaged themselves actively. So, there were resolutions that were adopted. In the case of India, Pakistan, there are numerous resolutions that provide the framework for how the Jammu and Kashmir issue should be resolved. So, the issue is that the parties concerned were not committed to implementing the resolutions. In our view, once the Security Council has adopted resolutions, it should also ensure the implementation of those resolutions. We believe, along with the large majority of the membership, that the Council should assume that responsibility. By doing that, the Council will reassert its influence, its legitimacy, and be able to play that role which is expected of the Council under its responsibility given by the Charter.
Passblue: As you’ve noted, the challenge with the Security Council isn’t just the lack of conversations or even the difficulty in passing resolutions. The real issue is implementation. Many resolutions, like those on Jammu and Kashmir, remain on paper for decades without being enforced. How can the Council enforce its legally binding decisions?
Ahmad: Article 25 [of the Charter] speaks about the members of the United Nations agreeing to carry out the decisions of the Council. So, it’s a responsibility that lies with the members of the UN to accept and carry out the decisions of the Council. In my view, the responsibility is even greater with the members of the Council to ensure that their own resolutions are implemented. The responsibility is even larger, heavier, with the permanent members. The problem arises when some members would like to prioritize one conflict situation at the expense of another, or, you are paying more attention to one set of issues and not to others.
PassBlue: I’d like to focus on solutions. You’ve mentioned that both political will and concerted efforts from member states are essential to resolving conflict, but we’ve seen that these aspects are often minimal. Take, for example, the current war in Gaza. The Council passed multiple resolutions, including one calling for a Ramadan ceasefire, yet the fighting continued. Even the eventual ceasefire, backed by the US earlier this year, happened without the Council’s participation and was short-lived. What can incentivize political will among member states?
Ahmad: Pakistan is clear: Resolutions of the Security Council are a very important document, and we can never imagine even saying that this is just a piece of paper.
PassBlue: What is the biggest diplomatic roadblock to meaningful international action on Kashmir, particularly at the UN?
Ahmad: This is a dispute between India and Pakistan. It also involves the Kashmiri people. So, the Security Council resolutions, which were, in fact, agreed on by both India and Pakistan at that time, provided a framework for peaceful resolution of the conflict. It provides for a plebiscite, which was to be held under the auspices of the United Nations, which was to allow the people of Jammu and Kashmir to decide their future, whether they would like to go with India or Pakistan. The problem mainly is that one of the parties, India, slowly and gradually went back from its commitment and impeded the actual implementation of those resolutions. Once again, we are talking about the same thing, that the resolutions were not implemented because of the intransigence of one of the parties. So, the issue has been festering. People are expecting and demanding the right to self-determination. Now they are being suppressed again, through military means and continuing the occupation. There is a need for the UN, the Security Council especially, to push for dialogue between India and Pakistan so we can move towards a resolution of this conflict.
PassBlue: The first resolution on Kashmir dates to the late 1940s, nearly as old as the UN itself. Yet, decades later, there has been little progress, most due to no political will. Beyond continued dialogue between Pakistan and India, what else can be done to generate the impetus to carry out these longstanding resolutions?
Ahmad: On political will, if you’re talking about the Security Council, especially the permanent members, it is basically for them to be reminded that this is about the resolutions. It is their responsibility to ensure, by whatever means, that parties re-engage and return to the process of organizing a plebiscite.The answer does not lie in closing your eyes and looking elsewhere.
PassBlue: Let’s touch on the recent move to outlaw child marriage in Islamabad. The law seems to apply only to your capital. However, in other provinces across Pakistan, girls as young as 16 can still legally be married. Are there efforts to make this a national policy so that child marriage becomes a punishable offense nationwide?
Ahmad: Pakistan, over the years, has taken some significant steps toward ensuring the rights of children and women in our approach to improving and safeguarding the human rights of all Pakistani citizens. So, this is a part of that continuing effort. Now this is related to Islamabad, because this is the capital territory. But since human rights is also an issue that is devolved to the provinces, all the provinces also adopt their respective legislations. So, I’m sure that some of them have already advanced on this and others will be doing this. This is the way.
PassBlue: Before we wrap up, I want to touch on Pakistan-US relations. Pakistan nominated President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Just a day later, June 21, he ordered a military strike on Iran that Pakistan described on June 22 in the UN Security Council as an “unprecedented escalation.” How do you reconcile these divergent responses?
Ahmad: What we have seen ever since President [Trump] came in is that he is talking about peace. He’s talking about ending conflicts. That is the general direction of the policy that the president has been presenting, and we’ve seen that he’s also made efforts in that regard. He made an effort vis-à-vis Ukraine. Then there was a ceasefire in Gaza. Then we also saw that in the case of the recent India-Pakistan conflict. So, it is in that context that this nomination was made. We expect that he will continue.
PassBlue: We try to help our readers to get to know the ambassador as a person. What do you enjoy doing outside work? What do you like most about living in New York City, and how does it compare to your previous postings?
Ahmad: We love New York. I’ve spent quite some years in New York in my previous assignments here. But do we enjoy New York? Not that much, because you know that the permanent mission keeps you so busy, but we do try to find time to enjoy the city. It’s a wonderful city. I like sports. In fact, this afternoon, we are going to play cricket [against the UK mission]. I like golfing also. I’ve enjoyed all of my previous assignments, starting from Africa in Niger, and I’ve been ambassador to Thailand and, most recently, in Paris.
Ambassador’s Profile
Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN: Asim Iftikhar Ahmad
Languages: English, French and Urdu (Pakistan’s national language)
Education: University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore (1991, degree in electrical engineering), and the University of the Punjab, Lahore (1988, B.A.)
His story, briefly: Ahmad joined Pakistan’s Foreign Service in 1993. He has served in key postings in Asia, Europe and Africa, including as ambassador to France and Monaco, Thailand and Niger. He has also held senior roles in the foreign ministry, including as spokesperson and head of the UN and Economic Diplomacy Division. Ahmad has been part of Pakistan’s team in the UN Security Council twice, first in 2003-2004, and in 2012-2013, when he was also the political coordinator. He became the country’s top envoy to the UN in January 2025. Ahmad, who was born in Lahore in 1966, is married to Asim Ahmad. They have three daughters, all of whom live in New York City.
Country Profile
Head of State: Asif Ali Zardari
Foreign Affairs Minister: Mohammad Ishaq Dar
Type of Government: Federal
Year Pakistan Joined the UN: 1947
Years in the Security Council: 2025-2026 (plus 7 other times)
Population: 255 million
Carbon emissions: 0.82 metric tons (per capita, 2022)
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Damilola Banjo is an award-winning staff reporter for PassBlue who has covered a wide range of topics, from Africa-centered stories to gender equality to UN peacekeeping and US-UN relations. She also oversees all video production for PassBlue. She was a Dag Hammarskjold fellow in 2023 and a Pulitzer Center postgraduate fellow in 2021. She was part of the BBC Africa team that produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, “Sex for Grades.” In addition, she worked for WFAE, an NPR affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. Banjo has a master’s of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an undergraduate degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
