(date of issue  14.02.2011)

Joint Press Statement of Ministerial Meeting of the G4 countries (Brazil, Germany, India and Japan)

  1. The Minister of External Affairs of India, the Federal Minister
     for Foreign Affairs of Germany, the Minister of External Relations
     of Brazil and the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Japan met
     in New York on 11 February 2011, for the second time in the last
     six months, to exchange views on Security Council reform.
  2. The Ministers agreed that as democracies with shared political
     values including respect for the rule of law, respect for human
     rights and a commitment to multilateralism, the G4 countries hold
     a number of common positions on the major contemporary challenges
     to international peace and security. They noted with satisfaction
     the important contributions being made by their countries to the
     working of the Security Council and to the maintenance of
     international peace and security. They reaffirmed their
     willingness and capacity to take on major responsibilities in this
     regard. They stated that the international system would benefit
     from the expansion of the UN Security Council, which would ensure
     that the Council is truly reflective of current geopolitical
     realities and make it stronger, more representative, legitimate,
     effective and efficient.
  3. In this context, the G4 countries reiterated their commitments as
     aspiring new permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well
     as their support for each other's candidatures. The G4 countries
     also reaffirmed their view of the importance of Africa to be
     represented in the permanent membership of an enlarged Council.
     They also reconfirmed the need for additional non-permanent
     members and improvement in the Council’s working methods.
  4. The Ministers expressed gratitude for the efforts made by the
     President of the General Assembly, H.E. Mr. Joseph Deiss and
     Ambassador Zahir Tanin, the Chair of the intergovernmental
     negotiations, for their facilitating role in the negotiations
     among the Member States. The Ministers stressed that the ongoing
     intergovernmental nego tiations made it clear that the
     overwhelming majority of the Member States support expansion in
     both the permanent and non-permanent categories of the Security
     Council membership, as well as increased representation of
     developing countries in both.
  5. The Ministers recognized that there is widespread support for a
     Member-States driven initiative to take the process of the
     much-needed reform of the Security Council towards a concrete
     outcome in the current session of the UN General Assembly.
  6. The Ministers, therefore, agreed to press ahead, with all
     necessary steps to achieve at the earliest an expansion in both
     the permanent and non-permanent membership categories of the
     Security Council. Towards this goal, the G4 countries reaffirmed
     their readiness to reach out to other countries and to work in
     close cooperation with them in a spirit of flexibility.
  7. Finally, the Ministers agreed to meet again within the coming
     quarter to review progress on the decisions taken.

S. M. Krishna
Minister of External Affairs of India

Guido Westerwelle
Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany

Antonio de Aguiar Patriota
Minister of External Relations of Brazil

Takeaki Matsumoto
State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Japan

New York,February 11, 2011