Pakistan thanks India for UNSC backing

"Once again I thank the prime minister for supporting Pakistan in the Security Council and also for access to the EU market," Gilani said at a joint press conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after their talks here.

Pakistan was elected to the UN Security Council last month as a non-permanent member for a two-year-term beginning January 1, 2012.  India is already serving a two-year term in the Security Council as a rotating member. Pakistan, too, had backed India's candidacy for a non-permanent seat in the council in the elections held last year.

This will the fourth time in the history of the UNSC that India and Pakistan will be in the Security Council as non-permanent members.  They had earlier served in 1968, 1977 and 1984.

However, Pakistan has been actively lobbying against India's candidacy for a permanent seat in the council. Pakistan narrowly managed to win the UN seat with 129 of the 193 member-states of the world body backing it. India played an important role by supporting Pakistan's candidacy, a point that has been acknowledged by Islamabad, signaling the new spirit of thaw between the two neighbours whose ties had plunged to a new low after 26/11 attacks.

Many of the countries that Pakistan had considered as friends were no longer its friends, but India "supported us in becoming a non-permanent member of the 15-member Security Council," Islamabad's envoy to the world body Abdullah Hussain Haroon told reporters at the Karachi airport last month.