Turkish president believes handful of WWII victors should not be in charge of global security

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during a speech at the Parliament of Angola, spoke against the "handful" of WWII victorious countries and said that the UN Security Council had no right to decide the fate of mankind.

The video of Erdogan's speech appears on his official Facebook account.

According to the Turkish president, it is unthinkable that the architecture of global security remains the same while the whole world changes, and diplomacy, trade and international relations undergo dramatic transformations.

The reluctance to heed the demands for change indicates "persistent attempts to maintain the status quo that emerged after the Second World War."

The Turkish President pointed out that "the world is bigger than five", alluding to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

In early October, Recep Tayyip Erdogan published a book entitled A Fairer World Is Possible. In the book, Erdogan put emphasis on issues of global politics, in particular injustice, the migration crisis, international terrorism, Islamophobia, discrimination and double standards.

The Turkish president wrote in the book that the UN Security Council, which includes Russia, the United States, China, Great Britain and France, should be fundamentally reformed. According to Erdogan, it is impossible to address modern problems through institutions based on requirements of the past. Such institutions, he pointed out, create new problems.

France reacts to Erdogan's initiative

The French Foreign Ministry supported Erdogan's proposal to reform the UN Security Council. Representatives of the French ministry recalled that Paris supported the idea to ​​expand the UN Security Council in relation to both permanent and non-permanent members.

Back in 2016, Russia's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, said that Russia did not rule out an opportunity to reform the UN Security Council, which would increase the number of permanent member states. According to him, Moscow is convinced that the reform "should enjoy the maximum support on the part of UN member states."

At the same time, Safronkov added, Russia advocates expanding the representation of developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America in the Security Council. One should also keep in mind the reasonable limit of the maximum number of UN Security Council members — a bit over 20 to maintain the effectiveness of its work, the official added.

Svetlana Zhurova, Russian MP, Olympic champion, first deputy chairwoman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, believes that Recep Erdogan wants to regain influence and territories that Turkey lost in the last century.

She assumed that the Turkish leader did not like the division of Europe.

"Of course, at some point of history Turkey had had a much greater weight in Europe, and then, as a a result of the wars, even before the Second World War, Turkey had lost that influence,” Zhurova said, ura.ru publication reports.

In addition, the MP found it strange that the Turkish president released such a statement about the victors in World War II 76 years after the war ended.