Sushma Swaraj pitches for expansion of UNSC

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday advocated reforms to the United Nations Security Council and pointed out that neither India with nearly one-sixth of the world’s population nor the largest continent Africa in terms of number of countries were on board.

She said the United Nations continued to be a “representative of the world order of 1945”.

“A major issue in this context is that of UN Security Council reforms. The Security Council continues to be representative of a world order of 1945. It is inconceivable that the Security Council today does not have any permanent representation from Africa, which is the largest continent (in terms of number of countries),” Sushma Swaraj said while addressing the third India-Africa Editors’ Forum meeting here.

She said it was also incomprehensible that India, which represents almost one-sixth of world’s population and has all credentials to be a permanent member of the Security Council, was still out of it.

“We all need to work together to remove this anomaly and the media has an important role in this,” she said.

The minister said developing countries were articulating similar views and concerns as the UN celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.

Sushma Swaraj said 2015 has been a historic year for pushing forward south-south cooperation.

“We celebrated the 60th anniversary of Asian-African conference and the 10th anniversary of the new Asian-African strategic partnership at Bandung (in Indonesia). We worked together in the finalisation of the post-2015 Development Agenda,” she said.

Welcoming the participants of India-Africa Editors’ Forum at the 3rd India-Africa Forum Summit, the minister said the unprecedented participation was testimony to the deep historical bonds that India shares with Africa.

The summit will begin on Monday and end on October 29.

IANS