By IANS,
New Delhi : India Tuesday pushed hard for expansion of the UN Security Council and exhorted the world to “brook no delay” in carrying forward the long overdue reforms of the 192-nation global body.
“An overwhelming majority of UN member-states has repeatedly expressed themselves in favour of expansion of the Security Council in both its permanent and non-permanent categories and an improvement in its working methods,” External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said at the 10th meeting of foreign ministers of the 46-nation Asia-Europe (ASEM) inter-regional dialogue forum in Godollo, Hungary.
“It is imperative that all the countries of Asia and Europe solidly support an expansion in both categories and collectively push for real reform of the Security Council,” he stressed.
Krishna underlined a new urgency for reform of the global body ahead of the next session of the UN General Assembly in New York in September when the issue is expected to top the agenda.
“The time for this reform has not only come, it is imperative that we brook no delay as that will only be at the expense of the United Nations, which is not in the interest of any of us, individually or collectively,” he said.
The minister also criticised vacillation on the UN reforms for the last two decades, saying much of this time was spent in an endless open-ended working group.
“However, the text-based inter-governmental negotiations that started last year have now brought us to a turning point where we can move things forward with real negotiations on Council reform,” he said.
Calling for revitalisation of the UN General Assembly, Krishna said the structure of the Security Council continued to reflect post Second World War and not contemporary realities.
“This detracts severely from its legitimacy. It also does not allow it to harness the benefits from the shifts in the global power balance in the last 65 years,” he said.