Every Nation Should Negotiate on UNSC Reform Text: India

UNITED NATIONS: With the "path-breaking" decision by the UN General Assembly to advance efforts for UN Security Council reforms, India's top diplomat here said that countries should now negotiate on the text on the table and give their national positions on the issue.

"We have got something after 23 years which is a document on the table. From now it is going to be much more in terms of what they are used to doing at the UN which is to negotiate with a text in front of us," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Asoke Mukerji said.

"Now the decision today puts the paper on the table and it is now for every country to negotiate on that paper giving their national positions," he told PTI here.

The 193-member General Assembly adopted by consensus yesterday, on the last day of the 69th session, a text that sets the stage for negotiations on the long-pending issue of UNSC reform during the 70th session that commences today.

Mukerji insisted that the decision to carry forward the intergovernmental negotiations on Council reform and the negotiating text is not a roll-over or technical decision.

"It is a substantive decision taken unanimously by the General Assembly fully within the meaning of any decision on UNSC issues. In this case we had a complete census. That is the important part that the entire membership has agreed and it is as much a reflection of commitment of member states as of the President of the General Assembly (Sam Kutesa) who achieved this outcome for us," Mukerji said.