Moscow: Russia has supported India‘s permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that India should be a permanent member of the Joint Security Council. Speaking to Russian media, he described it as necessary for global majority and inclusion. The Russian Foreign Minister said, ‘Countries like India and Brazil and representatives of Africa should have been permanent members of the Security Council for a long time. This is necessary to ensure representation and inclusion of the global majority.
Russia with India’s demand
This is not the first time that India’s friend Russia has supported New Delhi’s demand for permanent membership in the Security Council. Earlier, during his address at the 79th meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in late September, Lavrov had stressed that a ‘fair world order’ required expanding the representation of the Global South in the Security Council.
The Russian Foreign Minister, speaking in the General Assembly, had advocated seats for India and Brazil on the Security Council, but opposed the inclusion of new Western countries. “We support our position in favor of the candidatures of Brazil and India, as well as positive decisions on the well-known initiatives of the African Union,” he said. Certainly we cannot talk about any additional seats for Western countries, which are already over-represented in the Security Council.
India is demanding permanent seat
India has long been demanding a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council for better representation of the interests of developing countries. Before Russia, Britain, the US, France, Bhutan, Portugal and Chile had recently extended similar support. In September itself, Bhutan’s Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay had also supported India’s claim for a permanent seat.