Not easy for India to get permanent UN seat: Pak ministers

ISLAMABAD: Two senior Pakistani federal ministers, disappointed with US President Barack Obama's endorsement of India's bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, have claimed that it will not be an easy task for New Delhi to achieve the goal.

Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said it will "not be easy" for India to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

He said it would augur well for regional peace if Pakistan is taken on board regarding the issue of expanding the Security Council.

Education Minister Sardar Asif Ahmad Ali claimed that the prevailing international situation would not permit India to get a permanent seat in the Security Council.

The issue of permanent membership of the Security Council is "not as simple as envisaged by the Obama administration", he told Radio Pakistan.

Many countries are claimants for a permanent Security Council seat but the international situation is not in favour of India, Ali contended.

Mukhtar, who spoke to reporters in his hometown of Gujrat on the issue of expanding the Security Council, said Pakistan and India should work together to uproot terrorism.

Obama had said Pakistan is the biggest sufferer of terrorism while Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's reservations against Pakistan were mainly due to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, he said.

Kashmir is the "core issue" between Pakistan and India, Mukhtar said.

Pakistan's Foreign Office has already expressed its reservations about Obama's endorsement of India's bid to join the UN's most powerful organ.

It said the US backing would add to the complexity of efforts to revamp the Security Council.

Listing India's relations with its neighbours and alleged violations of UN resolutions on Kashmir as reasons for the country not to be given permanent membership of the Security Council, the Foreign Office said the US should take a "moral view" and "not base itself on any temporary expediency or exigencies of power politics".