United States (US) President Joe Biden’s nominee for the ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, on Wednesday, 27 January did not explicitly express commitment of the new administration for India to become a permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council.
According to PTI, the three previous US administrations (under George Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump) had publicly expressed support for India’s attempts to be a permanent member of the Security Council.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reportedly answered a question about whether India, Germany and Japan should be made members of Security Council, saying:
“I think there has been some discussions about them (India, Germany and Japan) being members of the Security Council and there are some strong arguments for that.”
“But I also know that there are others who disagree within their regions that they should be the representative of their region. That, too, is an ongoing discussion.”
The Coffee Club or United for Consensus, is made up of countries like Italy, Pakistan, Mexico and Egypt, and is opposed to the permanent membership of India, Japan, Germany and Brazil.
Biden, however, in his campaign policy document, had according to PTI, promised support to India as a permanent member of the Security Council.
Greenfield, further, according to PTI, in response to a question on decreasing representation in the Security Council of the geopolitical landscape, said:
"I think there is general agreement across the board that reforms are needed in the Security Council. What those reforms will be and how they will be implemented, I think remains to be decided but you know changing the number of members that happened we move from 11 to 15 some years ago and there are efforts to push for more permanent members, and those discussions are ongoing.”
India is presently a non-permanent member for a two-year term.
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