New Delhi, June 24
The visiting United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Mr Nicholas Burns, today said that India fitted the bill for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council but whether Washington will accord a Japan-type support to New Delhi would be decided by none other than President George Bush and Mr Bush had still not made up his mind.
Mr Burns had talks with Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran in South Block for more than 200 minutes today, an hour of which was devoted to India’s bid for the UNSC high table.
There is an expectation among Indian diplomatic circles here that the US, which has already thrown its weight solidly behind Japan for the UNSC seat, may make a formal announcement of support for Indian candidature when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh travels to the US on a bilateral visit in the third week on next month.
The UN reforms formed a major part of the discussions including the reform of the UN Security Council. Both sides put forward their perspectives on the UN reform. India conveyed to the US the progress made on the G-4 draft framework resolution and the intention of the G-4 to go forward with the resolution as per the decision of the four Foreign Ministers in Brussels a couple of days ago. Mr. Burns conveyed to the Foreign Secretary that while India meets the criteria laid down by the United States, whom the United States chooses would be a political question on which a decision would be taken by the President of the United States.
Mr S. Jaishanker, Joint Secretary (Americas) in the Ministry of External Affairs, assisted the Foreign Secretary in talks between the two delegations. The two sides had extensive discussions this afternoon in which several issues were discussed. First, the entire bilateral relationship in the light of the forthcoming visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington was discussed and in this context several bilateral initiatives which have been taken by the two countries in recent months were gone into, the MEA spokesman said tonight.
The talks will continue tomorrow wherein bilateral, regional and international issues will be discussed.
