Turkiye calls for UN Security Council veto to end: Could it happen?

What the report says

Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has renewed his push to end the United Nations Security Council veto, arguing that the current system gives too much power to the five permanent members and blocks effective action on major conflicts. Al Jazeera reported that Erdogan raised the issue at the 81st UN General Assembly in New York and repeated it in remarks to journalists, saying the council should become more representative of the wider UN membership.

The Security Council now has five permanent members — the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China — each able to stop a substantive resolution even if nearly all other members support it. According to the report, that power has contributed to repeated deadlock on issues including the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Turkiye’s proposal would go further than limiting the veto: Erdogan has also called for ending permanent membership and giving the General Assembly a larger role in choosing council members.

Al Jazeera said fully abolishing the veto would require a UN Charter amendment, which in turn would need approval from two-thirds of the General Assembly and ratification by two-thirds of UN members, including all five permanent members. That makes major reform unlikely without support from the very countries that hold veto power. The article also noted a separate France-Mexico proposal to voluntarily curb veto use in cases of mass atrocities, but said its impact would be limited because it would not be binding.