NEW DELHI: The visiting US senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said Thursday that India should be made a permanent member of the UN Security Councils as it was the largest democracy in the world.

Moynihan said it was time to take a fresh look at the United Nations Charter which was over 46-yrs-old. While the membership of the UN had grown five times over the years the Security Council continued to have just five permanent representatives. The former US permanent representative eat the U.N. pointed out that the existing U.N. Charter still reflected the international situation 9s it was after the second World War as Germany and Japan were listed as enemy states.

The senator said these issues would be discussed during the meeting in New York at the end of the month. The Prime Minister P.V Narasimha Rao is expected to attend the meeting.

Referring to.an agency report on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons report on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programs the Democratic senator and former ambassador to India pointed out that a state department spokesman in Washington had only said that the Bush administration was unable to say that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear bomb.

He said relationship between the U.S. and India had improved and as now “as it ought to be”. The situation was very different when it was US ambassador to this country he recalled. There were restrictions on entry of even U.S. students wishing to write dissertations on India.

Moynihan said the vastly improved ties owed greatly to the presence of a large number of people of Indian origin in America. Commenting on the recent U.N. resolution annulling an earlier resolution equating Zionism with racism Moynihan welcomed India’s decision to vote with the rest of the international community. He however berated the Non-Aligned Movement and the NAM countries which supported the Soviet move to bring in this resolution.

He sarcastically said “They would jump from the Brooklyn Bridge if asked”. He described the UN resolution against Zionismas “presumptuous of malevolent content and poisonous”

Correcting what he felt was the wrong impression in India about USS businessmen and multinationals being over enthusiastic about investing in this country Moynihan said though U.S. was India’s largest trading partner this country was way down on the American trade list at 32.

Article extracted from this publication >> January 31, 1992