WASHINGTON, Apr 19: Backing India’s stand that the United Nations Security Council of 70 years ago does not reflect the realities of today, a top US diplomat has said that the Biden administration supports G-4 members becoming permanent members of the UN’s top organ.
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, at a speech in Tokyo, where she is travelling, indicated that Russia and China are the only two countries in the Security Council who are opposed to the expansion of the 15-member powerful wing of the United Nations.
“Previously the United States, China and Russia agreed on one thing, and that was that we did not want to see changes in the Security Council. But in 2021, the US pulled out of that, and we’ve made clear that it is important that we see reform in the Security Council and broadly in the UN,” she said.
“The Security Council of 70 years ago does not reflect the realities of today, where we have 193 (Member States), where Africa does not have a permanent seat, Latin America does not have a permanent seat, and other countries around the world and other regions are not represented in a significant way in the Council,” she said.
“So one, we have made clear in our discussions with some of the members of the so-called G4 – Japan, Germany, and India (and Brazil) – we support their becoming permanent members of the Security Council,” she said.
“And the (US) President (Joe Biden) reinforced this in his speech last year, again reaffirming our support for permanent seats for Africa and Latin America and additional elected seats on the Council.
“Over the course of the past year, I have had a series of listening tours among regional groupings to get their ideas on how we might move this agenda forward. We are continuing to work on that,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
“Whether it will happen -, I know it won’t happen by September. It’s not something that’s easy to accomplish.
“I think one of the things I learned during the listening tour is that it’s going to require a lot of work. There’s no agreement among the 193 members on how this might work, but there is agreement that we do need change, and we have to work together to figure out how that change will take place and what form that change will be. But it is something that we are absolutely committed to, and we’re working to bring it to fruition,” she said in response to a question.
India has been at the forefront of years-long efforts to reform the Security Council, saying it rightly deserves a place as a permanent member at the UN high table, which in its current form does not represent the geo-political realities of the 21st Century.
Currently, the UNSC has five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US. Only a permanent member has the power to veto any substantive resolution.
Last month, India presented a detailed model on behalf of the G4 nations of Brazil, Germany, Japan and itself for Security Council reform.
The G4 model proposes that the Security Council’s membership increase from the current 15 to 25-26, by adding by adding six permanent and four or five non-permanent members. (PTI)
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