Araghchi: Model United Nations can promote better understanding of the organization

Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Abbas Araghchi said that Model United Nations can promote better understanding of the organization.

Addressing a Model UN (MUN) Security Council to consider “the situation in Yemen”, organized jointly by International Studies Journal (ISJ) and United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) at the Tehran Peace Museum on Thursday (August 27), Araghchi said that there are significant misunderstandings about the functions and objectives of the United Nations and its Security Council.

According to a news report by the United Nations Information Center in Tehran, the diplomat said that “For this reason, initiatives such as holding Model United Nations can promote better understanding of the Organization and its Security Council”.

He also expressed hope that, next time, the story surrounding the UNSC Resolution on Iran’s nuclear deal will be examined.

He said that the question of Iran nuclear deal and UNSC Resolution 2231 is unique in the history of the UN.

“I believe there has been no other resolution which has been negotiated word-for-word by the target country, namely Iran,” added Araghchi, who led the Iranian negotiating team with five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany.

Some 53 participants – including university professors, students and researchers as well as seven interns from the UNIC Tehran participated in the one-day simulation on the question of Yemen.

Also addressing the MUN participants, UN Resident Coordinator and UNIC Director a.i. Mr. Gary Lewis said in today’s world many leaders in law, government, business and the arts have – in the past – participated in Model UN as students and this includes UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon himself.

Calling the question of Yemen as “challenging, complicated and important”, the UN official said the current state of affairs there – and its immediate impact on our region – is being actively discussed at many forums in the United Nations. So the exercise parallels reality.

He said all of us need to continue to try to find ways to help the people of Yemen. He concluded that the students engaged in the Model UN exercise will have developed skills in three ways.

“First you will have a better understanding of one of the main human security challenges facing our region; second, you will have come to learn more about the procedures and rules of the UN bodies as well as the values of the United Nations; and finally, you will have improved your skills in negotiation, communication and consensus-building,” he said, adding all three, especially the last, will be useful in your future careers, no matter where life leads you.”

Ambassador Bagher Asadi a former career Iranian diplomat and also a member of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s “Panel of Eminent Persons on Civil Society and UN Relationships,” was the President of the MUN Security Council Simulation on Yemen.