Prime Minister Narendra Modi with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff at G4 Summit in New York.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said the United Nations Security Council or UNSC must be reformed within a fixed time frame to "include the world's largest democracies, major locomotives of the global economy, and voices from all the major continents."
"It will carry greater credibility and legitimacy and will be more representative and effective in addressing the challenges of the 21st century," the PM said in his opening remarks at a special summit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff -- his last official engagement in New York before he left for the West Coast. (
Full text of the PM's speech)
The three nations, along with India, make up what is known as the G4 group -- countries which back each other's bid for permanent seats at the UN Security Council. The Security Council, a powerful world body, is in charge of international peacekeeping and making changes in the UN charter.
Reforms in UNSC has been in the global eye for decades, the Prime Minister said. The world, he said, has changed since the UN was born -- the number of member states have increased four-fold and "the threat to security have become more complex, unpredictable and unidentified".
"Yet, our institutions, approaches, and often mindsets, reflect the wisdom of the century we have left behind, not the century we live in. This is especially true of the United Nations Security Council." This is why reform was urgent and important and should "take place in a fixed time frame", he said.
On Friday, the Prime Minister had made a strong pitch for reforms in his address at the
UN General Assembly, urging that it be reformed so it could carry "greater credibility and legitimacy".
The UN General Assembly has already adopted a negotiating document for long-pending reforms of the powerful wing of the world body.
India is making a strong bid for a permanent seat in an expanded Security Council, which currently has five permanent members -- China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Ten non-permanent members are elected for two-year terms.