Published On : Thu, Sep 24th, 2015

G-4 summit on September 26 to be significant for India

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New York/ Nagpur: The G-4 Summit of nations, namely, Brazil, Germany, India and Japan, to be held on September 26, 2015 is going to be most significant, as it is also going to be the ‘First’ after year 2004. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already reached New York and he will have a meeting with US President Barack Obama.

It is significant in many ways. The summit will bring together German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

According to India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Asoke Mukherji, the summit has ‘come together as an event’ only after the September 14 consensus adoption by the UN General Assembly of a negotiating document and the decision to commence text-based negotiations in the current session. The high-level summit ‘conveys its own message that the G-4 nations can play a role in galvanizing broad based support for the outcome of the negotiations which will start in November this year,’ Mukherji added.

The UNGA recently passed a decision calling for text-based negotiations and presenting a text on the basis of which the negotiations on the Inter-governmental format can take place.

The main focus of the summit is to ‘build’ on the UNGA’s adoption of a negotiating text on UNSC reforms.

Prime Minister Modi has called for ‘a concrete outcome on the reforms by the end of the 70th UNGA session next September 2016, the final text would be tabled in the Assembly for adoption.

On the US support to India, there are various templates for UNSC reform, the end product with India as a permanent member has Washington’s “unwavering” support.

Prime Minister Modi is expected to seek enhanced role for ‘peacekeeping contributing countries’ like India in the UN’s decision making process on its peacekeeping operations.

Modi is likely to make a statement on September 28 at UN Peacekeeping Summit convened by President Barack Obama. India has been the single largest contributors of troops to UN peacekeeping operations. This year, India will pass 185,000 cumulatively rotated through UN system.

The Peacekeeping Summit will also be attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The summit will provide a forum for the leaders of India and Pakistan to come face-to-face.

But according to Asoke Mukherji, Modi is deliberately skipping the 70th session of the UN General Assembly, because in the past, ere has been precedence for this whenever there is a high-level summit on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Now, as there is a UN Summit on the Post 2015 Development Agenda, it is important for New Delhi to focus on this because the biggest canvas for implementing its agenda is India.