NEW DELHI: While Prime Minister Narendra Modi again made a strong pitch for the UNSC reforms at the Brics summit saying it was out of step with current realities, the government described the Council as a damaged organ at the UN.
Permanent Representative of India to the UN, Ambassador TS Tirumurti, speaking in the UN General Assembly On the issue of equitable representation and increased membership of the Security Council, he said that a handful of countries were using the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) as a “smokescreen” and halting progress on Council reform. He said it was time for a “decisive move” to bring about long-delayed reform of the UN body.
“Today’s Security Council is a damaged body. It has been unable to act credibly primarily due to its unrepresentative nature. But then what is happening within the IGN process, to which we appear to be married? “Tirumurti said Monday.
Criticizing the absence of a single negotiating text, Tirumurti said that the IGN had become a “platform for debate in a university rather than a serious and results-oriented process in the United Nations composed of sovereign member states ”.
“And why have we reached this step? Because only a few countries don’t want us to continue. They have prevented IGN from progressing. They are using the IGN as a smokescreen to avoid being identified when speaking lip-service about Security Council reform.
“The conditions that they are establishing are impossible to fulfill, which is a total consensus of all the member states. Ironically, this is happening at a time when we were in a great rush last week to grant ourselves the right to e-vote. But for IGN, they don’t want to vote, leave only electronic voting, but only total consensus, ”he said.
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