UN pact a good first step to reform, says foreign secy

The UN Pact for the Future goes further than any document on the question of Security Council reform, India has acknowledged, while pointing out that this was a first step and underlining the importance of translating this intent into action soon.

At a briefing after PM Narendra Modi addressed UN’s Summit of the Future, where the Pact was adopted, foreign secretary Vikram Misri said, “For the first time, the entire UN membership, through the Pact for the Future that was adopted , has agreed on a pathway to transform global governance. And it is expected that this will provide some momentum to the processes that are already underway in many of these areas within the UN system.”

Asked if India felt this moved the needle on reform, and whether it felt more confident about the prospect of reform with the new language in the pact, Misri said that it was the first time that a UN document had an entire paragraph on UN reform. “It may not have every single detail in every area that we would imagine or we would like there to be, but I think it’s a good beginning. And we look forward eventually to the beginning of text-based negotiations in a fixed time frame going forward. But this should be seen as the first stop towards that objective.”

Separately, in response to a question on India’s engagement with Palestinian leadership, and how President Mahmoud Abbas responded to India’s recent abstention on a UN vote urging Israel to vacate occupied territories in West Bank, Misri said the meeting was a very good one. “It gave the opportunity to President Abbas to, in fact, appreciate the stance that India has taken in an overall sense on the Palestine issue…I want to tell you that President Abbas did explicitly state that he was very appreciative of India’s support not just for humanitarian assistance, but also for India’s political support to Palestine on the international stage.”