India's Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Germany's Heiko Maas, Brazil's Carlos Alberto Franco Franca, and Japan's Motegi Toshimitsu met on the sidelines of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.
"The ministers underlined the urgency of reforming the Security Council in order to make it more legitimate, effective, and representative by reflecting the reality of the contemporary world including developing countries and major contributors", the ministry said.
The diplomats said they were determined to initiate previously delayed discussions within the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) framework, which is a platform for discussing ways to reform the UNSC. They envisage the text-based negotiations to be adopted in the General Assembly "on the basis of a single document". In light of this, they ordered their delegations to the UN to back relevant efforts made by Abdulla Shahid, the president of the 76th General Assembly, and the IGN chairs.
The ministers decided to boost dialogue on the UNSC reforms with all interested countries and groups, and confirmed their support for each other's candidacies "as aspiring new permanent members in a reformed Security Council", the statement said.
The UNSC is comprised of five permanent member states — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States — and 10 non-permanent rotating members, elected for two-year terms.
The UNSC reforms must include its expansion through permanent and non-permanent seats to better deal with modern global challenges, the G4 diplomats said, expressing joint support for the provisions of the 2005 Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration, which entail reforms for more representation of African states in the Council.
The high-level week of the 76th UN General Assembly began on 21 September.