UNSC reforms ''inevitable'', says Krishna

Betwa Sharma

United Nations, Feb 11 (PTI) Pitching for "urgent"reforms of the United Nations Security Council, India todaysaid that the long pending expansion of the top organ of theworld body is "inevitable".

"The reform of the Security Council is inevitable,"Krishna told PTI after his meeting with the L69 group, adiverse set of countries from Africa, Latin America and theCaribbean, Asia and the Pacific.

"It is urgent and it will have to be supportedwholeheartedly and I think as a group we should carry thismovement forward," he said.

Krishna, who is here on his first trip to the UN sinceIndia became a non-permanent member on the Security Councillast month after a gap of 19 years, said that Security Councilreform is on the top of his agenda.

The L69 Group supports India''s position that theCouncil''s permanent and non-permanent categories should bothbe expanded, which was reiterated today by UN envoys of thecountries in the group.

"There was unanimity on views in L69 group onreforms," Krishna said.

This position, however, is not reflected as theconclusive position in the latest five page document, which isa product of ongoing text based negotiations that is beingchaired Zahir Tanin, Afghanistan''s envoy to the UN.

The Security Council reform process has been going onfor almost two decades.

But several questions are yet to be resolved, whichinclude how many new seats should be created, who gets theseseats and when should the veto power kick in.

Krishna would meet foreign ministers of three otherSecurity Council aspirants � Brazil, Japan and Germany latertoday. Following the meeting, the G4 countries are expectedto produce an outcome document on their discussions.

Except Japan, the three other G4 countries arecurrently on the Council serving as non-permanent members andthey are hoping to set the stage for becoming permanentmembers before their terms expire.

The four ministers will also meet General AssemblyPresident Joseph Deiss to discuss Security Council reform.

Deiss has spoken out strongly in favor of reform.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota alsoattended the L69 gathering and later met Krishna for abilateral meeting.