M A I N   N E W S

Natwar rushes to Brussels for G-4 meeting
T.R. Ramachandran
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 18
In a brazen attempt to stall the US gambit of splitting the G-4 on the United Nations Security Council expansion, the foreign ministers of India, Japan, Germany and Brazil are having an emergency meeting in Brussels on June 22 to review the proposals on the table and chalk out a fresh strategy so that the voice of the developing world is not muzzled in the international body.

Resolving to stick together for proper and much needed reforms of the United Nations for meeting the fresh challenges, External Affairs minister K Natwar Singh is cutting short his visit to Italy and rushing to Brussels for the meeting, it was officially announced here this evening.

The short notice conclave of the G-4 assumes significance because Japan is believed to have voiced its serious reservations with Washington’s ploy to placate Tokyo with one permanent seat for that country in an expanded UNSC.

Highly placed sources view the gambit of the US as an attempt to split the G-4. However, Japan has come out strongly that it cannot accept this idea. Simultaneously, the US has rejected veto powers to any of the additional members of the expanded UNSC emphasising that this privilege should remain with the Permanent five. The P-5 are the US, Russia, France, Britain and China.

There is much for the G-4 to deliberate on with respect to the proposed expansion of the UNSC. It adds an entirely new dimension to the Asian, African and Latin American perspective especially as the US is pushing for just two additional members in an expanded UNSC while the countries of the South want the UNSC to be enlarged from the existing 15 to 25. The US has remained ambivalent in supporting India’s bid for a permanent seat in the UNSC.

Washington has stressed that it favours limited expansion of the UNSC and will unveil specific criteria for candidate countries.

The US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns spoke at length about UN reforms earlier this week and sought to lay out the criteria for countries aspiring to become a permanent or a non-permanent member of the UNSC. This depended on the size of the country’s economy and its population, potential to contribute militarily to peacekeeping, commitment to democracy and human rights, financial contribution to the UN system, commitment to counter terrorism and non-proliferation and finally the geographical balance of how the UNSC is constituted.

Showing solidarity within the G-4, Germany has also rejected the US proposal.

Interestingly, the US statements coincide with the visit of National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan to Washington to prepare for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to the US next month.

The G-4 have agreed to support each other for a permanent seat in the UNSC. Acutely aware that securing veto powers might be an insurmountable matter at this juncture, the G-4 dropped this demand provided they are accepted as permanent members of the world body for 15 years. In the fresh draft the G-4 has suggested increasing the strength of the UNSC to 25 with six new permanent seats thereby providing representation to the starkly neglected regions in the globe.

During his visit to this country in April, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had acknowledged that there is legitimacy in India’s aspirations for a seat in the UNSC even as the P-5 with veto powers are unwilling to create any additional veto. “It is not going to be possible to remove the veto from the P-5 and the proposal on the table does not provide veto power to the new members in an expanded UNSC.”

Mr Annan had explained that the proposal is to have new permanent members of the UNSC without veto powers. However, if changes are to be effected that the new permanent members also have veto rights, then it is for the members states to decide, he had stressed.