India and other G4 nations, including Brazil, Germany, and Japan, have opposed proposals to allocate seats based on religion in a reformed UN Security Council. India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Parvathaneni Harish, said that proposals to introduce new parameters in reforming the Council, such as religious affiliation, run counter to established UN practice. He was speaking at a meeting of Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) at UN Headquarters in New York yesterday on Council reforms on behalf of the G4. India’s UN envoy stressed that regional representation, not religion, is the established basis for Council membership.
Turkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently said that an Islamic country should be a permanent member of the Council, while the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation had backed representation for the Islamic Ummah. He reiterated G4’s position that a decision on member states that will become permanent members of a reformed Council is a decision to be taken by the General Assembly democratically. Currently, the Council’s five permanent members include China, US, UK, France, and Russia.
