The UN has not done all it can to stop numerous conflicts mostly due to either a lack of consensus or insufficient determination of its most influential members and Bosnia has experienced this first-hand during the 1992-1995 war and now expresses its full support to talks on UN reforms in order to improve it, the Chairman of Bosnia’s tripartite Presidency, Sefik Dzaferovic, said in his video speech at the UN General Assembly session on Monday.

“After the founding of the United Nations, conflicts amounting to WWI or WWII proportions never really happened again,” he said.

“However, in the past seven and a half decades, a huge number of armed conflicts have occured with devastating consequences. Even at this moment, as this UN General Assembly is being held, people in crisis hotspots around the world fear for themselves and their families’ lives as they are dreaming of peace and security,” Dzaferovic argued.

He explained that in a significant number of cases, “the UN has not used all the mechanisms and capacities it had to stop these devastating wars. The most common reason for this was the lack of consensus or insufficient determination of its most influential members.”

“Bosnia and Herzegovina has had first-hand experience with just that, because the UN could have and must have had to prevent the genocide in the UN safe zone of Srebrenica and Zepa. The mistakes made by the UN were also acknowledged by the then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who said the failure would haunt the United Nations forever,” the Bosnian Presidency member said.

“In the future, the UN must continue to strive for the preservation of peace and international security, as its fundamental task,” he urged.

“While those are the most important ones, preserving peace and security is not the only UN mission. The protection of human dignity and fundamental rights, upholding justice and the rule of law, and social progress and balanced development are also essential obligations of the UN, making the UN itself purposeful in all non-crisis areas.”

“Bosnia and Herzegovina gives its full support to the talks on the reforms of the UN system in order to improve it, but when it comes to its initial mission, it remains equally important today and deserves absolute support,” he concluded.