India seeks inclusive, holistic document for negotiations on UNSC reforms

UNITED NATIONS: India on Friday sought an inclusive and holistic document that will enable all parties to base their negotiations transparently on the UN Security Council reforms.

India's Permanent Representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin said UN member states wanted continuity in terms of building on available documentation and a change in terms of style, so as to focus on negotiating the rolling document.

He said lack of a rolling document is the bane in current process on Security Council reforms."We seek a structured format of a single document that can be negotiated, one issue at a time, with the usual understanding that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed to," Akbaruddin said.

He was addressing the first meeting of the intergovernmental negotiations on the 'question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and related matters.'

Akbaruddin urged its Co-Chairs to facilitate from the next meeting onwards, a normal process based on an inclusive and holistic document that enables the member nations to structure negotiations transparently in a rolling document with the goal of early reform.
"It is not our case that the document that you prepare needs to have only one option. It can have, in every cluster, every option that can be distilled," he said.

"Such a document will provide clarity to where we stand, what are the options, who is proposing what and what are the interlinkages. Documenting positions in a holistic and transparent manner is what we seek from you as the way forward," he noted.Akbaruddin welcomed the remarks of the UN General Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak who called for out of the box thinking and flexibility among member nations on an early reform of the Security Council.

He said that Co-Chairs have produced documents and papers in each of the last 3 sessions and member states have engaged in discussion on the documentation submitted to us.
"Going forward, we desire that you build on these documents, rather than begin an entirely new approach," Akbaruddin said.