Momentum building up for UNSC reform: Rao

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Feb 16 (PTI) Appreciating President
Barack Obama for his support for its quest for a permanent
seat in the UN Security Council, India on Wednesday said the
US support has come at a time when momentum is building up for
the expansion of this most powerful wing of the world body.
"We deeply appreciate the fact that President Obama
made that declaration of support for India's candidature as a
Permanent Member of the Security Council and subsequently to
that we have had some useful discussion with the State
Department," Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao told
reporters at a news conference here.
Rao is here to prepare for Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton's visit to New Delhi in April.
"The US support has come at a very opportune time as
this campaign (of UN Security Council reform) has been
gathering momentum," she said.
The Indian Ambassador to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri
was recently in Washington and had discussions with the
State Department on this issue.
"The subject of UN reform and the US support for it
is obviously important because the US as a permanent member of
the Security Council has made its position known on the
expansion of the Security Council and on the inclusion of the
countries like India. It has also supported the candidature of
Japan as a permanent member," she said.
Brazil, Germany, India and Japan last week revived a
bid for permanent seats on the Security Council, saying they
hoped for concrete action this year.
"There is also a larger issue of building support on
the floor of the General Assembly for expansion in both
permanent and non-permanent categories of the Security Council
and that is a campaign that is ongoing," Rao said.
"Last week our external affairs minister was at the
UN for the meeting of the G-4 countries – India, Japan, Brazil
and Germany – on the subject of UN Security Council reform and
the stage has now been reached where we have a very large
number of countries that have expressed themselves in favour
of expansion of in both the permanent and non-permanent
categories," Rao said.
India and the United States have also been
discussing on a range of other issues at the UN and
co-operation on UN and multilateral matters.
"There is a whole broad band of issues on which
we co-operate in the UN," she said.
"Today for instance we had discussion on the
situation on Sudan, Ivory Coast, the issue of promoting
development co-operation in continents like Africa so there
are a number of issues that we are discussing within the UN
itself," she said, adding that the two countries are having a
joint working group on UN peacekeeping which is going to meet
in national Capital Delhi next month.