G4 Ministers push for UNSC reforms, assess state of negotiations (Ld)

New York, Sep 26 (IANS) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and the ministers of the G4 have reviewed the state of negotiations for reforming the Security Council while reiterating their commitment to the goal.

After their meeting on Thursday, he posted on X that the “G4 reiterated its commitment to reforming the United Nations including the UN Security Council. It also assessed the current state of the Inter-Governmental Negotiation (IGN) process”.

The others who attended were Foreign Ministers Mauro Vieira of Brazil, Takeshi Iwaya of Japan, and Johann Wadephul of Germany.

The four-country group known as G4 works together to campaign for reforming the Security Council to add permanent members and mutually support themselves for seats on an expanded Council.

The negotiations have failed to make progress because a small group of countries have sabotaged it by preventing it from adopting a negotiating text which sets the agenda for discussions.

As it has done every year since the negotiations began in 2009, the General Assembly last month inconclusively rolled over the process from the last session to new one that started this month.

During the rollover the G4 noted one slight sign of progress in the IGN’s cochairs producing a revised “Elements Paper” laying out their interpretation of the positions of the different countries and groups so there is a record of them to be able to continue the negotiations.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also said he noticed some progress.

He said at a recent news conference about the IGN, “Before, there was a committee that couldn't even issue papers and the documents would not move from one year to another”.

“Now there is a committee working seriously”, he said. “So I see movement”.

Reforming the Security Council is one of the top diplomatic priorities for India, which aims to get a permanent seat for itself.

On Wednesday, Jaishankar convened a joint meeting of the foreign ministers L.69, a group of 42 countries of the Global South that lobbies for Council reforms, and the C-10, a group of 10 leading countries of Africa that advocates adding permanent seats.

--IANS

al/rs