India contests Annan's suggestion

UN Secretary-General's remarks were factual: Natwar

Foreign Minister K Natwar Singh today said the remarks of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan were of a general nature and had no bearing on India's ambition to become a member of the UN Security Council with veto powers.

When asked directly whether it lay in the mouth of the UN Secretary-General to comment on whether India should or should not seek membership of the UN Security Council with veto powers, Singh said he did not want to comment on the remarks of the Secretary-General.

However, he did say many models had been offered for the enlargement of the UN Security Council, which would be discussed by 192 members of the United Nations in September.

"The UN Secretary-General's remarks were factual. the report of the high-level panel does not contain anything about a veto power. We mustn't confuse facts with hopes" Singh said.

When asked why the UN Secretary General had said what he had said""that India should not expect the Permanent 5 to give up their veto and allow more members into that club - Singh said Annan was saying "what he had been asked to say".

Singh was speaking at a meeting to launch the India-Japan parliamentarians' forum set up by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. the forum is, to be headed by Congress MP Ashwani Kumar, is likely to give a fillip to the political ties between lawmakers in India and Japan.

Singh said he hoped the Forum would become a fact of the all round comprehensive political dialogue mechanism that was visualised between India and Japan.

He said economic relations between India and Japan needed re-energising""10 years ago Japan was India's third biggest trading partner; today it had slipped to fourth place.

This was already being addressed - a joint study group comprising Rakesh Mohan and the Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister was preparing a report on how economic relations could be expanded.

Singh said Japan was once the largest FDI investor in India. But now volumes of FDI from Japan compared to China and South East Asia, were very small.

He accepted that Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) from Japan needed to be better utilised and wanted ODA to finance bigger infrastructure projects.

Japan and India, besides co-operating in energy, science and technology needed to carry out third country explorations in oil and gas. The security and defence exchanges needed to be continued.