M A I N   N E W S

Burns speaks his mind on G-4
Rajeev Sharma
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 25
Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran had another round of talks with the visiting United States Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns this evening after which he briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh extensively.

The importance of Mr Burns’ visit to India and his two-day-long talks with the Indian officials on a range of issues can be gauged by the fact that the Prime Minister, who is to embark on a bilateral visit to the US on July 17, carefully listened to the Foreign Secretary’s feedback on Mr Burns’ visit and inquired about the prospects for the G-4 resolution. Mr Burns, in his press briefing at Roosevelt House here yesterday had described the Prime Minister’s forthcoming visit to the US in glowing “We expect this to be one of the most consequential US-India summits in the history of our relationship, going back to the independence of your country.”

During the nearly two-hours talks with the Foreign Secretary, Mr Burns discussed unfinished bilateral issues from yesterday and a range of regional issues, including Iran. Mr Burns also met National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to finetune the agenda for the Prime Minister’s visit to the US.

Though Mr Burns, who leaves for Dhaka tomorrow morning, had wide-ranging talks with the Indian officials in the past two days, his focus was on the G-4 (India, Japan, Germany and Brazil) claim for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. Interestingly, during his talks today and yesterday, he did not ask India or G-4 to defer its resolution, but conveyed the same in a subtle manner.

Mr Burns today asked the Foreign Secretary whether it (the G-4 resolution) was the right course. He got the answer that if it were not, India and other G-4 countries would not have adopted it in the first place.

The stated American position is that only those countries which are “supremely well qualified” for the UNSC high table should get there and for this purpose Washington has laid down certain parameters. According to these parameters, these should be large countries with significant populations, countries that are democratic, countries that give substantial resources back to the UN system, countries that adhere to non-proliferation and counter-terrorism international standards. Besides, the issue of regional representation is also important and a region should not be over-represented or under-represented.

Mr Burns has gone on record to say: “We would favour perhaps a modest, and what we would think a pragmatic expansion of the Council to include perhaps two or so permanent members of the Council and perhaps two or three, perhaps more, non-permanent members of the Council. We think that there has to be room for the developing world on the Security Council, room that has been denied them for 60 years. And so for the non-permanent seats we would suggest they be allocated on a regional basis and for renewable terms of perhaps five years or so.”