From Lalit K Jha and Yoshita Singh
New York

The United States, Britain and France today reaffirmed their support to India’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council as text-based negotiations to expand the most powerful wing of the world body begins in November.

During their meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the leaders of the three countries also extended support to India’s desire to become a member of the four export control regimes, including the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

Within a matter of few hours, Modi met US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and the French President Francois Hollande, which External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup described as “power Monday”.

“On UN Security Council reforms, President Obama reiterated the support that he has publicly articulated in favour of India being a permanent member of the UN Security Council. There was discussion that now that the inter-governmental negotiations process is going to start on the basis of a text, how India and US can collaborate on that front,” Swarup told reporters at a news conference here.

Responding to a question on India’s push for reforms in the 70th year of the United Nations, Swarup said discussions were on that level of specificity.

“As you know, US is also participating in the inter-governmental, India is also participating. But the fact that President Obama reiterated support for India’s candidature as a permanent member is significant. Now, we need to see how the inter-governmental negotiations process advances,” he said. PTI