By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, January 26 -- When new members join the Security Council, as five did this month, they bring new questions, new red lines and sore spots. So it has been with Pakistan. At Thursday's debate about the Sahel region, the speaker for Pakistan took issue with use of the term "hot pursuit."
While in his Council statement the Pakistani representative did not further explain, outside the chamber two explanations were offered to Inner City Press: most recently US entries, by drone and otherwise, and further back, the threat of such from India.
Afterward, the representative of a Saharan country said, "Mali and Mauritania favor hot pursuit, why is a country in another region opposing it?" But that's now the Council works: countries concerned with precedents.
Similarly, and sticking for this story with Pakistan, after the bombings in Kano in Nigeria claime by Boko Haram, the resulting Council press statement took days to issue. Sources tell Inner City Press Pakistan opposed the term "all means," then wanted the usually standard provisos about international law appended specifically to the phase.
Finally a previous model, used for an attack in Herat in Afghanistan in 2010, was used: "combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." But other Council members expressed frustration, or solicitude for Pakistan being new on the Council.
After the Sahel debate, a press statement that was circulated was not agreed to. South Africa complains that "they want to say all these problems existed before Libya," problems that are not even on the agenda of the Security Council.
Another country responded that it all can't be blamed on Libya, "that's politics." And that's why -- there was no press statement on Thursday. Watch this site.
