A significant breakthrough in New York on the negotiations to expand the UN Security Council has once again galvanised Indian efforts with 138 countries giving their consent for the first time to produce a single document with clear options for expansion.
This document will be the text on the basis of which the next round of negotiations, expected later this month, will take place. Until now, sharp differences among member countries on the format of negotiations had prevented a consensus to even come up with a text.
The breakthrough is being seen as a major victory for the G-4 (India, Brazil, Germany and Japan) which led the effort to organise support for a letter requesting for text-based negotiations so that the matter can then move for consideration of the UN General Assembly this year.
Taking note of this letter, signed by 138 countries, Afghanistan Permanent Representative to the UN, Zahir Tanin, who chairs the intergovernmental negotiations on the subject, wrote to the UNGA: ?As a chair impartial to any of the positions yet partial to progress, I will study the appeal contained in the said December 23 letter, as well as all other input received, as we move towards a text-based fifth round.?
The move has annoyed Pakistan, which had been working hard against taking the negotiations on to the next stage with the help of a group of countries under the umbrella of United for Consensus (UfC), better known as the Coffee Club. It took strong exception at the chair taking note of the letter and then formally informing the UNGA about it. Pakistan felt this was a G-4 attempt to ?gatecrash? into Security Council as permanent members.
?We regret to note that our strict adherence to the format of negotiations as well as a commitment to progress through flexibility and compromise has not been reciprocated. On the contrary, a group of member states with individual national agendas to gatecrash into the Security Council have created a sense of stalemate by their inflexibility,? said Pakistan representative Abdullah Hussain Haroon.
What is important from the Indian standpoint is that countries like South Africa which had divergent views too signed on the text. Its representative noted that member countries ?must help move the process forward, identifying options for convergence?.
Non-permanent UNSC seat in sight
More than a decade after it unsuccessfully tried to make a bid, the decks seem to be cleared for India to become a member of the UNSC in the non-permanent category in October this year. Kazakhstan, sole contender from the region, is learnt to have withdrawn its candidature, leaving India the only country in the fray from the Asia region. Thailand, the other aspirant, had withdrawn earlier.