Shashi Tharoor Promises Peacekeeping Revamp

The Indian candidate for UN Secretary General promised reforms to expedite the release of UN peacekeepers to critical areas if elected. He is one of the five candidates vying for the post.

"One manifest problem is speed of deployment -- we simply don't get our soldiers [into conflict areas] quickly enough," said candidate Shashi Tharoor, a senior UN official.

Tharoor, one of the five contenders for the post, said that it was time for the international community to mount, deploy and command peacekeeping operations efficiently.

"We really have to run peace as effectively as governments have run war in the past," the 50-year old UN under-secretary-general for communications and public information said at a forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Tharoor had been the special assistant to the under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations between 1989 and 1996 reports the AFP.

In a straw poll last July, Tharoor had come in second to South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon.