Turkish FM knocks UNSC for 'late' response to COVID-19

WASHINGTON

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Tuesday criticized the UN Security Council for being late to respond the coronavirus pandemic that has infected nearly 2 million people worldwide.

"Everybody agrees that the Security Council has been late to respond the COVID-19. They met to discuss the pandemic almost four months after the outbreak," said Cavusoglu at a virtual conference held by the Atlantic Council in Turkey and the Turkish Heritage Organization.

"This is unbelievable, outrageous," said the top diplomat.

The virus known as COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China in December and has infected 1.94 million and killed more than 123,300 worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The UN, however, held its first meeting last week, during which Secretary General Antonio Guterres said engagement of the Security Council will be "critical" to mitigate peace and security implications of the pandemic.

Cavusoglu broadened his criticism and said the Security Council failed to "properly" address other international conflicts and cited "Syria is only one of them."

"Look at Yemen, Libya, others. Its structure needs to be adapted to global challenges as well. Turkey is a strong advocate of Security Council reform as President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan repeatedly underlined the world is bigger than five," he added.

"We must obviously admit that the UN Security council is neither inclusive nor representative," he said. "We don't have a better tool at the hand at the moment.

"We should our best to support it but we should actually intensify our efforts to reform UN Security Council," he concluded.