G4 member states call for UN Security Council reforms to make it "more representative"

United Nations: As the countdown ticks towards the UN 70th anniversary summit, India, Brazil, Japan and Germany have renewed their call for early action to make the Security Council “more representative and fit for the 21st century” and praised General Assembly President Sam Kutesa’s initiatives to give it top priority. [caption id=“attachment_2127471” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] G4 called for UNSC reforms. Reuters[/caption] Foreign ministry officials and UN ambassadors who met Friday in Berlin said in a joint statement that they (the four nations) would “continue their close cooperation with each other and with reform oriented partners to actively continue promoting a comprehensive reform of the Security Council”. “Seventy years after the founding of the United Nations and ten years after the 2005 World Summit, during which the heads of states and governments unanimously called for an early reform, it is high time to finally make the Security Council more representative and fit for the 21st century,” the statement said. Kutesa as well as the nations eager for reforming the UN are pushing for the reforms to be enacted at the September summit to mark the 70th anniversary of the world body’s founding. Known as G4, the four countries back each other’s bid for a permanent seat in a reformed Security Council. Following up on a September meeting of their foreign ministers in New York, the Berlin meeting was held “to exchange views on the current state of play and to develop concrete ideas on how to move the issue of Security Council reform decisively forward,” the statement said. Vikas Sawarup, the Joint Secretary for UN Political Affairs, and Asoke Kumar Mukerji, the Permanent Representative to the UN, represented India at the Berlin meeting, which was chaired by Patricia Flor, the Director General for UN Issues at Germany’s foreign Office. The four countries said they “welcomed the strong commitment” of Kutesa to making Security Council reform “a top priority” and offered their strong support to Courtenay Rattray, who was appointed by Kutesa to chair the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council reforms. At the UN headquarters in New York Friday, Kutesa’s spokesperson Jean Victor Nkolo told reporters that Rattray was holding consultations with member nations to move the negotiations forward. While many countries view the September summit as the appropriate time for the reforms, China’s UN ambassador Jieyi Liu opposed a deadline. “I do not think that any timeline imposed by any member should guide the entirety of 193 members” in enacting Security Council reforms, he said at a news conference in New York Friday. “It must be approached carefully, democratically by all the members of the General Assembly.” He said that Beijing supported enlarging the Security Council and that for it “the most important thing is to enhance the representativeness of the developing countries”. Four of the five permanent members of the Security Council - Britain, France, Russia and United States - have backed India’s quest for a permanent seat. China, which has not, recently softened its position by agreeing in a communique with Russia and India that it supported New Delhi’s “aspiration to play a greater role in the United Nations”. The statement was issued earlier in February after a meeting of the foreign ministers of the three countries. IANS