Germany, which is a member of G-4 along with India, Japan and Brazil and aspiring for permanent UNSC seats, underlined the need for a reform of the global body to reflect the current world realities.
"We stand fully behind the G-4 proposal but in the UN you need to have 129 votes. At the moment, none of us are in the position to get them on our own. That is why we have offered this pack," said German ambassador to India Thomas Matussek in New Delhi at the Indian Council for World Affairs. He was asked to comment on reports that Germany was not happy with India getting US support for UNSC membership.
Commenting on US President Barack Obama's support for India's aspiration for permanent membership of UNSC, the envoy said Germany "whole-heartedly" supports it. Stressing the need for reforms in the UNSC, Matussek said the present day UNSC reflected the "geo-political realities" of the 1940s and not the present global order.
The German ambassador said though the major economic business in the world was being run through bodies such as G-7 and G-20, the only body with accepted legitimacy was the UN. "Look at the US, in Iraq without the UN legitimacy, it could not get much far," he said, making his point.
When asked why the armed forces of the two countries were not conducting joint counter-terrorism drills, Matussek, "We would like to work closely with India in the fight against international terrorism. We would be more than happy to perform these manoeuvres with Indian armed forces."
He noted that all the attacks in India have been traced to Pakistan abd underlined the need for going to their roots in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
When it was pointed out that Pakistan was having a hidden agenda in Afghanistan for creating strategic depth there, he said that Islamabad needed to understand that it would also not be safe unless there was peace in Afghanistan.
