The Hindu : International / India & World : `Make Security Council more representative'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 30, 2005

International

International - India & World

`Make Security Council more representative'

UNITED NATIONS, JAN. 29. Rejecting the contention that the expansion of the United Nations Security Council be limited to non-permanent members, India has said that the inclusion of major developing countries from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the developed world as permanent members is necessary to make the Council more "representative" and "legitimate."

"We will work with Brazil, Germany, Japan and Africa in our quest to make the Security Council more representative, democratic, legitimate and effective," the Indian Ambassador to the UN, Nirupam Sen, said at an informal meeting of the General Assembly. Effectiveness is not an "arithmetical concept" but "one of responsible and rational decisions that would have wide acceptability," he said, in the debate on the report of the high-level panel on the reforms of the United Nations.

India, Germany, Japan and Brazil, candidates for inclusion in the permanent category, have pledged to work together for expansion of the 15-member Council. Developing countries including small and vulnerable ones, have creative ideas but these can become a material force only when they are permanent members to carry them out, he told the delegates, mostly from the third world.

Global player

Mr. Sen expressed India's readiness to undertake its responsibility as a global player in an expanded Council. The Council at present reflected the world at the end of the Second World War. It has crumbled but is artificially being kept alive through the UN. The Council comprises five permanent members — the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China — and 10 non-permanent members.

PTI

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