US to consider India's candidature for UNSC

WASHINGTON: Linking India's candidature to the United Nations Security Council to reforms in the world body, the United States has said it will consider the issue ‘very carefully’.

“India's candidature to the United Nations Security Council is something that the United States has to consider very carefully but the membership issue is less of a question pertaining to India than how Washington would want to go about in its discussions with other nations on the eventual composition of the Council," Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher said.

Asserting that his country has thought about it "very carefully", Boucher in reply to a question at the Asia Pacific sub-committee of the House International Relations Committee, said, "We have thought about this. We have thought about this very carefully. The thinking about India takes place within a broader context, first of UN reform, where we want to see many aspects of the United Nations reformed-- and the US priority is to see many of those things done first."

"We are going to take up the issue of Security Council reform at some point. There's not really any kind of consensus now. I think our judgement and the best way to approach this is not to have the United States take out a position for particular countries in advance, but rather to maintain flexibility as we go in."