Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking during a special high-powered summit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
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Modi talked about the need for eradicating poverty and ensuring development as he highlighted that 1.3 billion people around the world are forced to live in poverty.
India has always maintained that the responsibility of containing climate change such as the fallout of a medley of causes including greenhouse gases and carbon-dioxide emissions is of the developed world and not of the developing countries.
According to DD News, Modi told the UN summit on Friday, “We must reform the United Nations including its Security Council so that it carries greater credibility and legitimacy and will be more representative and effective in achieving our goals”.
The Prime Minister, while making initial remarks, pointed out that the subject of reforms in the UNSC has been the focus of global attention for decades but “unfortunately, without progress” so far. He also termed climate change and terrorism as big challenges. “We have gathered here to decide a new direction”, he said addressing the UN General Assembly session.
“We live in a digital age”.
Talking about G-4, he said, “Our Group of four countries came together in 2004, bound by our shared commitment to global peace and prosperity, our faith in multilateralism and our willingness to assume our global responsibilities that the world expects from us”.
In a joint statement later, the G-4 leaders stressed that “a more representative, legitimate and effective Security Council is needed more than ever to address the global conflicts and crises, which had spiraled in recent years”. “I strongly believe that Prime Minister Modi’s election previous year represent an important opportunity between our two nations”, Senator John McCain said in a video message welcoming Modi to the US.
He said the commencement of text-based negotiations of the UNSC “is an important first step but it must be carried to its conclusion in the 70th UN General Assembly”. In 2011, China supported for an increased Indian role at the United Nations, without explicitly endorsing India’s Security Council ambitions.
Stating that the UNSC reform is a very contentious issue as the existing members don’t want to give up the “veto”, Tewari said, “The question is not whom to include in the UNSC, but whom to exclude, as there are various contending and competing countries from each continent”.
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Regional rivals Italy, Pakistan, Mexico and Egypt were opposed to the G4 becoming permanent members with a veto power. The regional rivals formed an interest group, known as the “Coffee Club” and later “Uniting for Consensus”.
