Krishna to arrive in UN; Security Council reform tops agenda

Betwa Sharma
United Nations, Feb 10 (PTI) Indian External Affairs
Minister S M Krishna will arrive here Thursday on a two-day
visit during which he is expected to meet leaders from other
nations and discuss the UN Security Council reforms.
This is Krishna's first visit to the United Nations
since India became a non-permanent member on the Security
Council last month after a gap of 19 years.
Krishna is set to meet foreign ministers of three
other Security Council aspirants – Brazil, Japan and Germany
Friday. Following the meeting, the G4 countries are expected
to produce an outcome document on their discussions.
The four ministers will also meet General Assembly
President Joseph Deiss to discuss Security Council reforms.
Deiss has spoken out strongly in favor of reform. Last
month he said, "the situation for the moment is quite complex
still and I hope that during this year we will at least be
able to bring the negotiations, real negotiations under way."
Krishna will also attend a high-level meeting Friday
on the linkages between international security and development
in the Security Council, hosted by Brazil, which holds the
presidency of the Council for February, and chaired by
Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota.
Security Council reform is also one of the subjects
that Krishna will discuss in his first meeting later Thursday
with the members of the L69 group, which is a diverse group of
countries from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia
and the Pacific that want to reform the Council.
The L69 Group, headed by Jamaica, supports India's
position that the Council's permanent and non-permanent
categories should both be expanded.
"It is only through such expansion which addresses the
lack of representation among African, Asian and Latin American
countries, that we can achieve a more representative,
legitimate, credible and effective council," Jamaica's
Ambassador Raymond Wolfe told the General Assembly last year.
This position, however, was not reflected in the
latest five page document, which is a product of ongoing text
based negotiations that is being chaired by Zahir Tanin,
Afghanistan's envoy to the UN.
While welcoming the shorter text as a step forward,
Indian envoy Hardeep Singh Puri said New Delhi was "unhappy"
that its position of expansion in both categories was not
stated "boldly" enough in the new text.
The Security Council reform process has been going on
for almost two decades. But basic questions are yet to be
resolved, which include how many new seats should be created,
who gets these seats and when should the veto power kick in.
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