US President Joe Biden’s pick for the ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, on Wednesday did not explicitly commit the support of the new administration for India to be a permanent member of the Security Council.
Three previous administrations, that of George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, had publicly said that the United States supports India’s bid to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
However, Thomas-Greenfield, who has spent more than 35 years in foreign service before being nominated to the position, during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told lawmakers that this is a matter of ongoing discussion.
“Do you think India, Germany, Japan, should be (permanent) members (of the UN Security Council),” Senator Jeff Merkley from Oregon asked during her confirmation hearing for the position of the US Ambassador to the UN.
“I think there has been some discussions about them being members of the Security Council and there are some strong arguments for that.
“But I also know that there are others who disagree within their regions that they should be the representative of their region. That, too, is an ongoing discussion,” she said in an apparent reference to the Coffee Club or United for Consensus.