55 nations back India for non-permanent seat at UNSC

Washington: India’s candidature for a non-permanent seat of the United Nations Security Council was supported by 55 countries of the Asia-Pacific group for a two-year term in 2021-2022.

India’s permanent representative at the UN Syed Akbaruddin tweeted to thank countries for their support:

India has been a non-permanent member of the UNSC for seven terms: 1950-51, 1967-68, 1972-73, 1977-78, 1984-85, 1991-92 and the latest in 2011-12 when Hardeep Puri was representing the nation.

Elections for five non-permanent members of the 15th UNSC will be held around June next year.

India has said that a majority of UNSC member support the expansion of permanent and non-permanent members.

Akbaruddin cited the Asia-Pacific group with 52 countries vying for two non- permanent seats while West European and other states are 25 members vying for two seats.

“Put another way, there are more than 3 billion of we the people’ from Asia-Pacific seeking representation through 2 seats with a 2-year term, while people’ from no other region face such daunting challenges in seeking to be represented equitably, he said.

The 193-member General Assembly elects five non-permanent members for a two-year term at the UN high table. The council has five permanent members: China, US, UK, France and Russia.  The non-permanent members are distributed on regional bases. The regional distribution stands at five for African and Asian States; one for the Eastern European States; two for the Latin American and Caribbean States; and two for Western European and other States.

Presently, the 10 non-permanent members are Belgium, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Germany, Indonesia, Kuwait, Peru, Poland and South Africa.