Bhutan supports India in its bid to be permanent UNSC member

New York: Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay has assured his country`s wholehearted support to India in its bid to be a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Briefing the media here about the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bhutanese counterpart, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Vikas Swarup said there was a discussion between both leaders on the UNSC reform.

"And Prime Minister of Bhutan said that it`s an anomaly that a country like India is still not a permanent member and basically Bhutan supports India wholeheartedly in this," he added.

Swarup said that the Bhutanese Prime Minister complimented Prime Minister Modi on what he called was a visionary speech at the UN outlining his vision for the sustainable development goals.

"There was also a discussion on bilateral issues. In particular, there was much appreciation of the fact that our hydroelectric projects in Bhutan are progressing very well," said Swarup.

"Reference was made to the Punatsangchhu I and II and Mangdechhu projects and the point came out that once all of them come on stream since 80 percent of this power would be exported to India we would be saving 11 million metric tonnes of carbon. So, this ties in very well with the central topic of the discussion today i.e. sustainable development goals and climate change," he added.

Swarup said that there was also discussion on other bilateral projects like e-library, getting students to read, progress in the small development projects that India is implementing in Bhutan, the tremendous tourism potential because Prime Minister Modi has been emphasising again and again that tourism can become another strong bridge between both nations.

Swarup further said that there was also a brief discussion on BBIN."The Prime Minister of Bhutan said that there must be an expansion of the BBIN beyond the motorways. He suggested that we could now perhaps look into other sectors as well," he added.