Excellent speech, Modi tells Sushma on UNGA address

Addressing the UN General Assembly, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj referred to the perpetrators of 26/11 attacks who continue to roam freely in Pakistan and pressed the world community to ensure that countries which provide finances, safe havens and arms to terrorists “pay a heavy price”. “If we are to preserve the centrality and legitimacy of the United Nations as the custodian of global peace, security and development, the reform of the Security Council is its most urgent and pressing need”.

Minister for external affairs, Sushma Swaraj, on Thursday criticized the United Nations for being ineffective in preventing a few of the crisis around the world.

“How can we have a Security Council in 2015 which still reflects the geo-political architecture of 1945? But it has not permitted a fundamental challenge to the inequity of a system built for a world that longer exists”.

She said that the world today is ravaged by war in three continents with the Security Council being “unable or unwilling to stanch the flow of blood”.

“India was one of the countries which signed the Charter although we were not independent at that time”. Except for adding four non-permanent seats in 1965, the basic structure of the Security Council has remained the same.

Talking about the threat of terrorism, she said “the safety of peacekeepers, the security of our nations, indeed the future of the worldwide community itself is now dependent on how we respond to the greatest threat that we face today”.

“This first, but critical step, must be the springboard for action in this historic 70th Session of the UNGA”, she said.

The sides reiterated support for the reform of the UN Security Council and Swaraj praised the role of Chair of Inter-Governmental Negotiations Ambassador Courtnay Rattray of Jamaica on his work to move forward with text-based negotiations on the reform process.

Earlier, Swaraj participated in a meet of foreign ministers from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), where they agreed that India should go ahead with its proposed SAARC satellite project, even if all SAARC nations do not become a part of it.