Text of the Speech made by Mr. Seydoux (France) in the Security Council Meeting No. 1247 held on 25 October 1965

Text of the Speech made by Mr. Seydoux (France) in the Security Council Meeting No. 1247 held on 25 October 1965

Because of the lateness of the hour, I had not intended to take part in the debate which has just taken place. However, in view of its unexpected scope, I am compelled to state my Government's views here and now. The statements we have just heard from the representatives of the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom do emphasise the importance of the problems related to the Security Council's peace-keeping powers. While I should not like to divert the Council from its search for appropriate solutions to the conflict between India and Pakistan, I have myself during the last few weeks draw the attention of several of my colleagues to the need to make the Council fully capable of fulfilling its own responsibilities with regard to methods of carrying out the resolutions it has adopted. We intended not to make anyone's task more complicated, but to prevent the recurrence of situations similar to those which almost jeopardised the future of the United Nations. Therefore, my delegation regrets that its recent efforts, with other delegations, to bring about a settlement of these questions have not been crowned with success.

Having made these comments, the French delegation. considers it necessary briefly to recall the principles which should guide our action whenever the Security Council decides to set up a peace-keeping operation-even if it is merely sending an observation or inspection mission. Without challenging the emergency measures which the Secretary General may be led to take, we consider that it is for the Security Council, taking into account the information the Secretary-General gives it, to decide on the size and the command, as well as the principal characteristics, of the mission or force it has established. The Council should not get lost in detail, which would paralyses it, but it should make sure that the proposed methods correspond, at all stages, with the political data about the problem as assessed by the Council itself. We consider that in that kind of a framework, the Secretary-General's action would avoid the difficulties which would not fail to arise if his terms of reference were defined too vaguely, thus leaving the door open to deep differences of interpretation on the part of members of the Council. The Council should also not forget the financial aspects of an operation it decides to undertake; its basic task is to set a ceiling for expenditure on the basis of the Secretary-General's proposals and to decide how the operation is to be financed, whether on a voluntary or on a compulsory basis; in the latter case it should invite the General Assembly to provide the funds required in the Organisation's regular budget. I do not want now to reopen a discussion on this point,

which the Special Committee on Peace-keeping Operations has had to deal with and will probably deal with again, but I do want to stress once again that the Security Council cannot be asked to take simple decisions of principle and then leave. to other bodies the task of carrying them out. Similarly, my delegation considers that it is for the Council to establish, in resolutions, the duration of their application. A rule of that kind, which must be interpreted with all necessary flexibility, would enable the Security Council to reassess, periodically if need be, the means made available to the Secretary General in relation to the political objectives on which its members have reached agreement. These are the comments my delegation wished to make with regard to the questions of principle which, we think, will be raised in the future on the application of Security Council resolutions on peace-keeping. Naturally, I reserve the right to speak again at a future meeting, and, if necessary, on the substance of the problem.