India slams Italian 'bribery' charge on G-4
India on Thursday took strong exception to charges made by Italy regarding use of "financial pressure" by G4 countries to gain support for their UN aspirations.
India on Thursday took strong exception to charges made by Italy regarding use of "financial pressure" by G4 countries to gain support for their UN aspirations and said the issue was in complete violation of diplomatic norms.
"Demarches are being sent to the Italian government and the Italian ambassador to India on the issue. We are surprised and noted with deep regret complete baseless allegations made by the Italian Permanent Representative to the UN," the External Affairs spokesman Navtej Sarna told reporters in Delhi on Thursday.
"These remarks are in complete violation of norms of international diplomacy," he stressed.
"We will expect the government of Italy to disassociate with these unfortunate remarks made by the Italian PR to the UN," he added.
Italy's UN Ambassador Marcello Spatafora Wednesday charged that the G-4 nations comprising India, Japan, Brazil and Germany were "resorting to financial leverage and to financial pressures" to win support for their candidature for an expanded UN Security Council.
He said this while presenting a draft resolution for Uniting for Consensus - a grouping also known as Coffee Club that is hostile to the G-4's UN aspirations to the UN General Assembly.
"I am referring to the G4 resorting to financial leverage and to financial pressures in order to induce a government to align, or not to align, itself with certain position," he said in New York on Monday.
"We all know in this hall what has been going on in some capitals, with threats of, for example, cutting financial assistance, or stopping the implementation of a certain project," he said.
Uniting for Consensus group includes Pakistan, Italy, South Korea, Argentina and Mexico as its leading members.
The German government on Wednesday rejected Italy's charges as "naturally untenable." "These allegations are naturally untenable. They are groundless and must be rejected," said Jens Ploetner, a German foreign ministry spokesman.
These remarks show increasing desperation by the Coffee Club members coming as they do immediately after India and the 53-nation African Union achieved a breakthrough in London on presenting a joint G-4-AU resolution.