New Delhi, June 19
Career diplomat Shashi Tharoor, whom India has fielded for the post of UN Secretary General, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tonight for 20 minutes.
The PM’s Media Adviser Dr Sanjaya Baru, described the meeting as a courtesy call by Mr Tharoor.
Diplomatic circles here are agog with the Shashi Tharoor development. Many see the move as a diplomatic ace by New Delhi. India surprised its friends and detractors alike by announcing Mr Tharoor’s candidature as the unwritten convention is that a P-5 country or a country nursing aspirations for permanent membership of the UN Security Council does not run for top jobs. This unwritten code has been violated as India is a strong candidate for permanent membership of the Security Council.
In many ways the development can be seen as a diplomatic ace because the Security Council will begin scrutiny of candidates for the UN top job, which means that a nation has to make up its mind by this month end. The Indian move has left very little time for other powers in the region who look for counter-balancing at every forum in the world.
So far, from Asia only Sri Lanka has formally conveyed its candidate’s name to the Security Council. The term of the present UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan expires on December 31 which means that the General Assembly has to vote and install the new UN chief before December 31 midnight.
Mr Tharoor, who met CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat for an hour this evening to allay the party’s apprehensions , said his candidature would not dilute the country’s quest for a permanent seat in the Security Council. “India’s bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council is part of the world body’s reforms which began in 1992. For us, Secretary-Generalship is a matter of immediate future whereas permanent membership is a long-term issue. And my candidature will not affect India’s chance at all,” he told reporters after his meeting with Mr Karat.
Mr Tharoor’s United Nations career began in 1978 on the staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva. His article “Why America Still Needs the UN,” published in Foreign Affairs in the fall of 2003, just after the Iraq war, arguing the case for continued US engagement with the United Nations, generated a hot debate on the subject.
