India has world's largest population, Security Council must reflect geopolitical realities: UNGA chief

By Naveen Kapoor
New Delhi [India], August 29 (ANI): President of the United Nations General Assembly Abdulla Shahid has said that current geopolitical realities have to be reflected in the Security Council and India has the world's largest population.
In an exclusive interview with ANI in New Delhi, Shahid said during his one-year tenure at the UN he asked the member states to hasten the process and UNSC will lose credibility if reforms do not happen soon.
"The intergovernmental negotiation process for Security Council has been going on for fourteen years. Time and again, I have during this one year, called on the member states to hasten this process because the Security Council has to be reflective of the current geopolitics of the world. It cannot be a thing of the past. If not, then the credibility of the organization itself continues to fall," Shahid said.
Asked whether he supports India's candidacy for the UN Security Council, he said that as UNGA chief he can't judge the eligibility.
"As the President of the General Assembly, I am not here to judge on the individual member states eligibility, I am to lead the process and I am happy this year I am able to make good progress."
"The current geopolitical realities have to be reflected in the Security Council as you rightly said India has the world's largest population now," he added.
At present five countries are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. India enjoys widespread support of several UN members and four out of five members of the Security Council support India's permanent membership at the powerful United Nations Council.
The five permanent members are the United States, Russia, the UK, China and France. China has not expressed support for India's permanent membership. To hasten the UNSC reforms, India is also working with G4 (India, Japan, Brazil and Germany).
The permanent members of the UNSC have veto power. Time and again China, in particular, has stalled and shielded the blacklisting of terrorists.
Abdulla Shahid said terrorism is pure evil and has no religion.
"When it comes to terrorism, we have to agree that terrorism has no religion, no creed nothing, it is pure evil and that is what is terrorism about, the world should be able to unite against this evil, scourge," Shahid told ANI.
Shahid also praised the role India played in vaccinating the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"India is always the world's pharmacist, it has reached out to many countries. During my travels as President of General Assembly, I have found that India reaches not only to the neighbourhood but also as far as Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific and India really shows its humane face of compassion," he said.
Abdullah Shahid will relinquish his position as President of UNGA on September 12 this year. He is currently visiting Delhi and met several leaders including External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar.
The UNGA session will begin later this month. (ANI)