Thaindian News

Pretoria, Oct 18 (IANS) India, Brazil and South Africa, all of whom are now non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, Tuesday underscored again the urgent need to reform the system and add more members to the high table with increased participation of emerging economies.

In a joint communique after IBSA Summit level talks among Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Brazilian President Dilma President Dilma Rousseff and their host South African President Jacob Zuma, the three leaders said the Security Council expansion must be of both permanent and non-permanent categories.

In the communique, officially called the Tshwane Declaration, the three sides also discussed what is called the G4 initiative for UN reforms among India, Brazil, Germany and Japan for mutual support of their candidature as permanent members of the Security Council.

“The initiative has been supported by a wide coalition of member states from all regional groups of the UN. Therefore, they expressed the view that such strong support should be considered as the basis for further discussion in the ongoing intergovernmental negotiations on the UNSC reform,” the communique said.

The need for greater progress in the negotiations was identified as critical to ensure the required impetus to change and the three sides committed themselves to close cooperation and coordination at the current General Assembly.

Earlier this month, India, Brazil and South Africa - together members of the Security Council for the first time since the trilateral forum was formed in 2003 - abstained on a vote against the Syrian regime proposed by some members, notably the US.

This had led to the first ever walk-out by the US at the high table of the council, which in diplomatic circles was seen as a victory of sorts for developing countries in general, and IBSA in particular.

(Arvind Padmanabhan can be reached at arvind.p@ians.in)