- Friday, September 06, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
RUSSIA is ready to take up the issue of expanding the United Nations (UN) Security Council by providing membership to India and Brazil but doesn’t see any reason to do the same for Germany and Japan, Russian ambassador to China Andrey Denisov on Monday (4) said, according to the country’s state-owned TASS news agency.
“Russia is calling for the expansion of the UN Security Council based on a broad consensus. It requires increasing the proportionate share of African, Asian and Latin American nations for the UN Security Council to be able to reflect the aspirations of people around the world and be a more democratic body,” Denisov said at the 10th Global Peace Forum in Beijing which took off on Sunday (3).
“At the same time, I would like to be frank – we aren’t ready to support the accession of actors such as Germany and Japan,” he said.
“We don’t see any added value from their potential accession. Given the current balance on the council – or imbalance, I should say – the membership of the two above-mentioned candidates is unlikely to strengthen it, rather it will make the imbalance even more striking. On the other hand, we are open to the prospects of India and Brazil joining [the council],” the envoy said.
“We have been persistently calling for making the UN Security Council as representative as possible. Despite all the difficulties, the UN remains a unique organization. We hope to preserve and improve this platform,” Denisov added.
The forum in the Chinese capital brings together more than 300 current and former diplomats, government officials, researchers and experts who are attending both offline and online.
This year’s event, which is being held days after the 14th BRICS summit, is dubbed ‘Preserving International Stability: Commonality, Comprehensiveness and Cooperation’.
Beijing Tsinghua University has been holding the annual forum since 2012.
