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Indonesia introduces informal ‘sofa talk’
During its month-long presidency at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) last month, Indonesia attempted to initiate the so-called “sofa talk” meeting as a new working method to find common ground between opposing views on various controversial issues in the United Nation (UN) body
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span>During its month-long presidency at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) last month, Indonesia attempted to initiate the so-called “sofa talk” meeting as a new working method to find common ground between opposing views on various controversial issues in the United Nation (UN) body.
The Foreign Ministry’s multilateral cooperation director general, Febrian A. Ruddyard, said the sofa talk platform invited representatives of each member country to meet periodically for an informal meeting to talk about “anything under the sun” that could be discussed at the security council.
“Sofa talk is an informal consultation between permanent representatives of UNSC member countries on a sofa without any special agenda or meeting records,” he told reporters in a briefing in Jakarta on Tuesday.
After being elected as a UNSC non-permanent member last year, Indonesia assumed its first presidency in May where it led meetings and sessions, as well as facilitated reports and information exchanges on behalf of the council.
Febrian said as a platform, sofa talk could be useful for each UNSC member to be able to see each other’s positions and to find a middle ground to address the issue in question.
“Sofa talk is very useful to mediate issues in which countries have different interests and it has started to be used by other countries as a working method,” he said.
The meeting format — where countries meet with no agenda and no meeting record — bears a resemblance to the ASEAN Retreat meeting platform, which has been used by Indonesia and ASEAN members for decades as part of its high-level consultative process.
He said such a platform would be very effective to be applied in the midst of the situation of the UNSC Security Council, which currently tends to be characterized by disunity and distrust.
Former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said during a UN Security Council meeting on conflict prevention and mediation on Wednesday that the council should have a stronger and united voice in order to have a decisive impact.
“This strong, common voice is needed more than ever at this current time, when the deceptive allure of populism and isolationism is growing across all continents, from North and South America to Africa, Asia and Europe,” he said as quoted from the UN website.
“The working methods of the council could be improved,” he added, advising members to “agree on a joint common position to address conflicts in their early stages”, including through timely and strong statements.
Febrian, meanwhile, revealed that the “sofa talk” method would not result in strong or binding results because of its informal nature.
“The weakness of sofa talk is that it will not produce strong outcomes as expected by the international community. But at the very least, it can seek unity or the same position for certain issues,” he said. “If the UNSC cannot make a decision on an issue, at least one can find the same position.”
Febrian said the approach was Indonesia’s way of multilateral diplomacy which gave special importance to dialogues and efforts to find common ground and set differences aside, “because a lot of people start from the differences and making it hard to come up with an output.”
According to Febrian, the sofa talk format was now also used by Kuwait, which currently held the monthlong rotating UNSC presidency after Indonesia.
“Hopefully this can be a legacy from Indonesia in the UNSC,” he said.
