Chairperson of the UN Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) Sylvie Lucas will convene a series of meetings beginning in February next year to move the long-pending UN Security Council (UNSC) reform process forward. This is good tiding for India which has been demanding an early completion of the process. Sylvie informed UN members in a letter of her decision to continue the IGN process in the 70th session and move the reform process forward on the basis of the text circulated in July this year and adopted by consensus by the 193-member Assembly. Lucas, who was appointed by current UN General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft in October, said she will keep the positions and proposals of Member States in the centre of the discussions. The first meeting to negotiate the UNSC reforms on the basis of July 31 text will be convened by Lucas on February 3 and will focus on the key issue of the relationship between the Council and the General Assembly with the aim of identifying areas of convergence between the positions and proposals of Member States on that particular key issue. Subsequent meetings will focus on the other key issues beginning with the size of an enlarged Security Council and working methods of the Council, she said in the letter.