India will support UN secretary-general Ban-Ki moon if he decides to seek second term in 2012, according to a senior diplomat attached to the Indian Mission in the United Nations. “If he (Ban) is available and running we will endorse him for a second term,” the diplomat said, adding he did not want to comment and dismissed as speculative that former UN under secretary-general and sitting Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor might contest for the election. Mr Tharoor lost to Mr Ban in the last election in 2007.
South Korean Ban took office on January 1, 2007. His first term of five years ends on December 31, 2011, and the term of the UN Secretary-General can be renewed one time. In October 2011, member states will either extend Mr Ban’s tenure or appoint someone new.
“I am not sure whether only the five permanent members would be involved in the exercise and if so the 10 non-permanent members need to organise themselves in the decision making process. Is there any other candidate than Mr Ban and I don’t think there is,” the Indian diplomat said. On the role to be played by India as a non-permanent member of the UNSC, the senior diplomat said India’s strategic vision is to take the position very seriously. “Security Council should deal with those issues that really constitute a threat to international peace and security. The tendency of the council to resort to permissive interpretations on what constitutes a threat to international peace and security,” he said. In the final analysis, members can’t countenance a situation where the work that should be done in the General Assembly or ECOSOC ends up only being done at the Security Council. “We need a very fine balancing between the role of Security Council and what the general assembly is doing,” he said.