Kazakh president calls for reforming UN Security Council

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Thursday called for reforming the UN Security Council to give more voice to "average states.”

Speaking at the Astana International Forum in Kazakhstan's capital Astana, Tokayev said the UN remains the only universal global organization that unites all countries, but it would not be able to meet the challenges without comprehensive reform of the Security Council.

According to the Kazakh president, the current global instability is rooted "deep in our past."

Tokayev said that the "dividing forces" are not "exclusively" geopolitical but also economic.

"Economic policy itself is openly used as a weapon. This confrontation includes sanctions and trade wars, targeted debt policy, restriction of access or isolation from sources of financing, as well as control over investments," he stressed.

Together these factors are gradually undermining the foundation on which global peace and prosperity of recent decades were based – free trade, global investment, innovation and fair competition, he said.

Efforts to reverse negative trends are becoming increasingly difficult due to widespread misinformation, Tokayev lamented.

The growing mistrust pushes governments to increase spending on defense, which in turn "pushing the global world order to a critical point," he said.

"For the first time in half a century, we are faced with the prospect of using nuclear weapons," the Kazakh president said.