Most Muslims convinced of US control over UN

Dubai: There is widespread belief in Muslim countries that the United Nations is controlled by the United States, a survey of up to seven predominantly Muslim nations has found.

The survey by WorldPublicOpinion.org covered Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Iran, Indonesia, the Palestinian Territories, Azerbaijan and Muslims in Nigeria.

While respondents were found to be sceptical of the UN's current role in world politics and conflict resolution, a significant number showed a desire to see a more powerful body with a wider mandate.

Public in all nations polled favoured the UN Security Council having its own standing peacekeeping force (on average 64%), having the authority to go into countries to investigate human rights violations (average 63%), and having the right to authorise military force to stop a country from supporting terrorist groups (average 76%), or to prevent severe human rights violations such as genocide (average 77%).

The respondents predominantly believed that the United Nations has not been helpful in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. None of the countries surveyed showed a majority which believing that the UN's role had been helpful in solving the conflict.

Palestinians were found to be the most sceptical of the UN among the seven countries surveyed.

Those countries that believed in the effectiveness of the UN nonetheless felt that it had not done enough in solving the Middle East conflict.

A majority of theose surveyed supported UN regulation of the global arms trade, with the exception of Turkey, where only 34 per cent favoured regulation.

Turkey was also the only country where least support was shown for UN intervention in states where a democratic government has been overthrown. While majorities in most Muslim countries supported arms regulation, only Nigerian Muslims supported the world body imposing taxes on arms and oil to fund UN activities.