AKIPRESS.COM - Asserting that efficiency of the Security Council does not depend on "numbers", India has said the UN top body's expansion should be based on "contemporary realities" and the need for ensuring due place to under-represented and unrepresented regions, reports PTI.

"I fail to understand that if since 1945 the total population of the UN's membership has increased more than 3 times, the number of countries members of the UN has increased more than 3 times, yet we are hearing voices saying that increase of the size to less than 3 times what it was in 1945 is too much," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Syed Akbaruddin told a council reforms meeting yesterday.

He asserted that the UN must recognize that the case for optimal size of the expanded Council needs to be built on "contemporary realities".

Mr Akbaruddin said the expansion should also be based on the need to ensure that the under-represented and unrepresented regions including the developing countries of Africa, Latin America and Caribbean and the vast majority of Asia and Pacific, find their due place in this "long overdue" expansion.