A day after French President Emmanuel Macron backed India's bid for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday made a similar appeal.
Starmer, while addressing the general debate at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, said that inclusion of India and other countries will make the UN body more representative.
"If we want the system to deliver for the poorest and most vulnerable then their voices must be heard. We need to make the system more representative and more responsive to those who need it most. So we will make the case not just for fairer outcomes, but fairer representation in how we reach them. And this also applies to the Security Council," it said.
He said that UNSC must become a more representative body, which is willing to act and "not paralysed by politics".
"We want to see permanent African representation on the Council, Brazil, India, Japan and Germany as permanent members, and more seats for elected members as well," Starmer said.
On Thursday, Macron had also supported India's inclusion in the prestigious UN body.
"We have a Security Council that is blocked...Let’s make the UN more efficient. We have to make it more representative," Macron said at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.
"That's why," he said, "France is in favour of the Security Council being expanded. Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil should be permanent members, as well as two countries that Africa will decide to represent it."
India has been at the forefront of efforts at the UN to push for urgent long-pending reform of the Security Council, emphasising that it rightly deserves a place at the UN high table as a permanent member.
India has argued that the 15-nation council founded in 1945 is not fit for purpose in the 21st Century and does not reflect contemporary geo-political realities.
Currently, only five countries are permanent members of UNSC and have veto powers. These are US, China, France, Russia and UK.
Besides the five permanent members, there are ten non-permanent members in UNSC, who are elected for two-year terms by the UN General Assembly.
India last sat at the UN high table as a non-permanent member in 2021-22. There has been a growing demand to increase the number of permanent members to reflect the contemporary global reality.
In an interview with the French daily Les Echos in 2023, PM Modi strongly advocated for India’s “rightful place” on the UN Security Council. He criticized the uneven geographical representation within the UNSC and called for reforms in the global body, stating that it exemplifies the disconnect of an institution that has not kept pace with the evolving world order.
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