India to revive G-4 to push for UNSC permanent seat

New Delhi is hoping to ensure at least 150 votes

The minister will attend a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the G-4 countries on the sideline of the United Nations General Assembly. He will be representing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The G-4 is an alliance of India, Japan, Germany and Brazil, floated to push for expansion of the UNSC and help each other get a permanent seat. The bloc, however, had lost its vigour over the past few years, primarily due to growing India-US bonhomie and Tokyo's insistence to evolve a formula that cannot be opposed by Washington.

But both New Delhi and Tokyo recently agreed to revive the G-4 to counter the Coffee Club (or Uniting for Consensus), a bloc of Pakistan, Italy, Mexico, Argentina, South Korea and several other countries opposed to the bid of India, Japan, Brazil and Germany for permanent UNSC seats. 

But Malaysia and some other Coffee Club members are expected to support India.
Krishna and his Japanese counterpart Katsuya Okada discussed the issue of reviving the G-4 process during the latter's visit to New Delhi last month. They agreed to meet other G-4 Foreign Ministers on the sideline of the UNGA in New York.

Diplomatic sources said that Japan and two other G-4 countries were looking at India to engage with the African countries to help them evolve a consensus and expediting the process to reform the UNSC.

New Delhi, however, is confident to win a non-permanent seat in the council in the election scheduled next month. Highly-placed sources said that the withdrawal of Kazakhstan from the race last January and the intense diplomatic campaigns by New Delhi over the past few months had apparently borne fruit and India was now sure of support from at least two-third of the 191 members of the UNGA.

New Delhi's confidence was further bolstered by the decision at the BRIC summit last April at Brasilia, where countries in the grouping -Brazil, Russia, India and China - agreed that India and Brazil must play a leading role at the UNSC. 

During Krishna's visit to New York; India is likely to step up campaigns to ensure at least 150 votes for the election to the non-permanent seat and thus give a boost to its bid for a permanent seat.

Besides the G-4 meeting, Krishna will also be a part of the SAARC foreign ministers' gathering on September 29, G-77 foreign ministers meeting on September 24, as well as those of BRIC, IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) and RIC (Russia, India and China).

After his US visit, Krishna will travel to Nigeria, Egypt and Sri Lanka on October 29 and 30. By the end of October, he would have met foreign ministers of nearly 125 countries drumming up support for the non-permanent membership of India at the UNSC.