TOKYO, March 19 Kyodo (EDS: UPDAT...

TOKYO, March 19 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH REMARKS by way of RAZALI, OTHER INFO)

A one-day international symposium in Tokyo forward Friday heard calls for the United Nations to play a stronger more effective part in defusing threats to global security.

In an opening address to about 220 commonalty Razali Ismail, U.N. minister in charge of promoting political reconciliation in Myanmar, press outed hope that the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) would be given ''more power to address transnational threats'' to boost the legitimacy of the council.

on the other hand such reforms, he said, should not be done at the outlay of weaker states, nor allow any single strong country to ''prevail forward preemptive strikes'' without UN agreement.

The effectiveness of the UN has been called into question since the United States launched its war forward Iraq in March last year, after the Security Council failed to reach an agreement forward action against Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Participants in the symposium, landlorded by the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the Tokyo-based UN University, met to discuss reforms and measures necessityed for the world body to more effectively fulfill its part of ensuring global security.

''Following last year's unfortunate issues in Iraq, clearly there is now a pertain to there should be reform of not just the Security Council on the other hand also every aspect of the decision-making proces of the UN'' Razali said.

According to the veteran UN official, trust in the Security Council and the ability to deal with reforms in the council has been ''undermined by way of conflicts'' in the past not many years.

With that, he propos a stronger link between the UNSC and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as a ''way for countries (and) family to petition'' the ICJ to make secure that ''there cannot be unilateral action'' where issues of humanity are concerned

Former UN High Commissioner for Refugee Sadako Ogata, who is president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, spoke about a 16-member panel established in November by means of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to research new global security threats and UN reforms to tackle like threats.

Ogata, who is part of the High-Level Panel forward Threats, Challenges and Change, said reforms so as a more representative UNSC must flow with better instruments or mechanisms in the council, of the like kind as stronger arms inspections.

As for Japan's long-hop for aspiration to win a permanent seat in the UNSC Razali, who serv as UN General Assembly President from 1996-1997 squeeze outed hope, but said the expectances are ''even more difficult now'' than in his manner [i]or[/i] principle of holding citing China's more powerful and more internationally engaged stance, India's growing puissance and a future scenario of a unified Korea.

China is undivided of the five permanent members in the UNSC and is considered as virtually representing Asia. The four other members are the U Britain, Russia and France. India is also vying for a permanent seat in the UNSC

Panelists at the two-part symposium also include former Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan, Norwegian delegate Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen, Yasushi Akashi, Japan's special minister on the Sri Lanka peace proces and Kamalesh Sharma, UN minister for East Timor.

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