Adding permanent members to UNSC seriously on table:Gutress

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has sounded a note of optimism on stalled Security Council reforms, saying that adding permanent members is now being taken seriously. He noted that four of the five permanent members of the Council were in favour of adding members to the Council. Guterres made the remarks while speaking to reporters during his annual end-of-year conference in New York on Monday. He was responding to a question on UN Security Council reform to make the powerful world body more fit for purpose to deal with crises such as the Ukraine war.

“I think that the during our General Assembly session in September, for the first time, I heard from the United States and from Russia clearly the indication that they were in favour of an enlargement of the number of permanent members of the Security Council,” he said. He added that there was a proposal from France and UK some time ago for some restrictions in the use of the right of veto. “But I remain pessimistic about the possibility of the right of veto to be seriously put into question,” he said . The UN chief added that reform of the Security Council needs two-thirds of the votes of the General Assembly plus the five positive votes of the permanent members of the Security Council – China, France, Russia, UK and the US. Last week, Guterres had tweeted that “A majority of @UN member countries now acknowledge that the Security Council should be reformed to reflect today’s geopolitical realities. I hope regional groups & countries can work together to achieve greater consensus on the way forward and the modalities of reform.”
India is pressing for Council reforms, which have stalled for decades and lobbying for a permanent seat. Russia, the US, Britain, and France have endorsed India for a permanent seat. However, the other permanent member, China, has so far been against reforms. As its President this month, India convened a ministerial-level meeting of the Council on reforming the UN which put a spotlight on the Council's basic architecture of permanent membership mired in post-World War II geopolitics which has changed dramatically in 75 years. The meeting heard broad support for reforms from across the world, with only a small number of countries opposing all or most of it.