NEW DELHI: India on Thursday hinted that it can consider a seat in the UN Security Council’s permanent table without a veto in the beginning while contending that this demand should not be used to hold back on the “urgently-needed” reform in the world body.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Gopal Baglay on Thursday contended that India’s position is in sync with the G-4 (Indian, Germany, Brazil and Japan) position.
India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin had on Wednesday delivered a joint statement on behalf of the G-4 at the Inter-Governmental Negotiations on Council Reforms. In his speech he said that the new permanent members of the expanded UNSC would have the same responsibilities as the present five permanent members but “they shall not exercise the veto until a decision on the matter has been taken during a review.”
“The Indian Ambassador’s statement merely stresses that the matter of veto need to be made into something to protract urgently needed reforms of Security Council,” Baglay added.
Baglay also enumerated the G-4 position on the main elements - there should be expansion in both permanent and non-permanent category, the new entrants in the permanent category could exercise a moratorium for 15 years on their right to veto which is available to the current permanent members and there will be a review of the reforms after 15 years.
The G-4 have been seeking an expansion of the UNSC, where the five countries are permanent members reflecting the post World War II order in 1945. There are 15 members in the UNSC, five are permanent and 10 are elected for two-year terms. In his speech, Akbaruddin also contested the argument of a 13-member Uniting for Consensus Group, with Pakistan in it, to introduce a category of longer-term elected members for the Security Council to accommodate the demands from the G-4.