Summit Will Seek Broader U.N. Role in Heading Off Conflicts

Leaders of 15 nations who will gather at a summit in the Security Council next week will declare that they are meeting “in a time of momentous change” after the Cold War, and they will ask Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to report how the United Nations can strengthen its role in preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peacekeeping.

Boutros-Ghali’s report, due May 1, could cover the role of the U.N. in identifying early areas of instability and how to make greater use of his offices before full-fledged crises occur. Boutros-Ghali will be urged to spell out the financial and other resources the U.N. needs to fulfill its expanded duties.

According to a draft of the final summit communique obtained by The Times on Wednesday, the heads of government will agree that “the world now has the best chance for peace, security and development” since the founding of the United Nations in 1945. But they will warn that change has brought “new risks for stability and security.”

The summit agenda is the responsibility of the Security Council as it seeks to fulfill its role in maintaining international peace and security.

The heads of government will stress the council’s continuing insistence on full compliance by Iraq with the terms ending the Persian Gulf War, “including respect for the human rights of Iraq’s citizens.”

They will note that the range of the U.N.’s peacekeeping tasks has broadened considerably in recent years.

The communique calls on all nations to work to prevent the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, with a goal of agreement in Geneva by end of 1992 on a convention banning possession of chemical weapons agents. It urges all nations to provide full information to a U.N. register of conventional arms transfers, established by the General Assembly late last year.

“The ending of the Cold War has raised hopes for a safer and more prosperous world,” the draft says.

President Bush, French President Francois Mitterrand, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, British Prime Minister John Major, Chinese Premier Li Peng and 10 other leaders will reaffirm their commitment to collective security to deal with threats to peace and to reverse acts of aggression.

The draft of the final summit communique, in the form of a presidential statement by Major, was given to diplomats at the United Nations on Wednesday.

Britain will hold the chair of the Security Council when the summit convenes next Friday. The council will meet in morning and afternoon sessions, and British diplomats have been hard at work at the U.N. and in world capitals seeking agreement on the final communique Major will deliver as council president.

In talks with other world leaders, British officials have referred to the document as the “birth certificate of a new world order.”