By IANS,
New Delhi : India will pitch for fast-tracking reforms of the UN Security Council and press for expanded global cooperation in combating terrorism, piracy and climate change during External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna’s visit to New York to attend the UN General Assembly.
Krishna will attend the high-level segment of the UNGA Sep 26 and address the international leaders Oct 1, said informed sources here Friday.
He is headed for intense multilateral diplomacy that includes a meeting of India with the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council countries, the meeting of the foreign ministers of BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), and a conclave on Somalia.
Krishna will also be attending a meeting of the foreign ministers of the eight-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries on the sidelines of the UNGA.
At the UN, India, which is currently serving a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, will seek to shape the global agenda on a host of issues.
On top of the agenda will be a renewed effort to fast-track the expansion of the UN Security Council in both permanent and non-permanent categories.
The focus will be on moving forward negotiations to tangible outcomes, the sources said ahead of Krishna’s visit.
In this context, India will mount a diplomatic outreach with the delegations from African countries as the 54-nation continent holds the key to the reforms of the UNSC.
The intricate negotiation on the UN reforms, which have been decried as talk shop, have advances in the last month with the beginning of the text-based negotiations.
Being a victim of terrorism, India, which is the chair of the terrorism committee of the UN, will also press for concrete measures to target financing of terrorist networks.
Evolving a concrete plan of action to combat piracy and bolstering peace-building efforts of the UN will also be part of India’s UN agenda. India is currently the chair of the UN contact group on piracy off the coast of Somalia.
Amid multifarious and competing agendas, India will seek to promote development-centric agenda and stress that the negotiations on climate change must balance the imperatives of environment and development.
“We want to convert the Rio consensus into a post-2015 development agenda,” said the sources.