Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has expressed hope that India will get a permanent seat at the UN Security Council whenever the reforms of the international body and its expansion take place.
"So far as the Security Council Permanent Membership is concerned, I do hope as and when the expanded Security Council along with the general reforms of the United Nations take place India's claim for being the permanent member of the UNSC would be considered and accepted," Mr Mukherjee said.
The finance minister said this on Thursday while responding to a question on India's chances in the expanded Security Council at the Woodrow Wilson Centre.
Early this month here, national security advisor Shivshankar Menon had said things are moving in the right direction for the country to get a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.
"I think the world's view has evolved, as far as I can see we are heading in the right direction. As far as we are concerned in terms of distance or the gap of the world's attitude towards the UN Security Council reform and what we consider the desirable outcome that gap has steadily narrowed," Menon said in response to a question.
"And now there is meaningful negotiation going on in the United Nations itself on not just Security Council reform but the reform of the UN itself. That's the real prospect. How the US chooses to do this, when the US chooses to do this, it is for the US to decide.
We have made our views known, I do not think, we are shy in a way, they (the US) know what we expect," he said. Early this week, India rebutted a media report that Washington has linked the UN Security Council permanent seat to the resolution of the Kashmir issue.
On Wednesday, a report said that US President Barack Obama would be carrying the message on his visit to India in November that settling the Kashmir issue is the key to get a permanent seat at the powerful wing of the world body.
Dismissing such reports, official sources said that India was eminently qualified to become a UNSC permanent member and there was no possible link with the Kashmir issue.
"There cannot be any possible links. These are very different issues," Indian official sources said, dismissing the reports as speculative.
In New York, foreign secretary Nirupama Rao recently said that while the US is not fully sold on the idea of India becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council, there has been positive movement in that direction.
"I'm not saying we have reached the destination of full American support for our case but certainly we are moving from divergence to greater convergence," she had said.