Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has said his country backs India’s bid for permanent membership of the UN Security Council.
“India has the full support of Portugal to become a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations,” he said in Panaji on Saturday at an event on the first day of his two-day visit to Goa, a former Portuguese colony.
Sousa who had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday also said India and Portugal were looking at cooperation across different sectors.
“My long meeting with Prime Minister Modi was very fruitful bilaterally and multilaterally and we discussed concrete projects for investment — Portuguese investment in India and Indian investment in Portugal. Economic cooperation, scientific cooperation, scientific cooperation and university cooperation… all of it in the period for the next five years,” Sousa said.
The Portuguese president also oversaw the signing of a series of agreements between Indian and Portuguese agencies on a whole range of economic, scientific, and industrial fields even as he urged India — and specifically Goa — not to look at the visit from a nostalgic point of view but rather look towards the future.
Sousa made specific reference to Goa’s unique position in India, but warned that clinging on to the nostalgia of the past would not be beneficial.
“This is also our challenge — to make the bridge between the past and the future. We cannot have ‘nostalgia-vision’ of any kind in any place. My advice for Goa is not the nostalgic one because the past is the past, but the past can become the future if we take advantage of that past,” Sousa said.
“I came here a little bit of the cultural heritage we left in Goa… As much I am proud of the cultural heritage India has left on my culture, the Portuguese culture on my history, the Portuguese history on the survival of my nation because we are what we are because we had differences at that point,” Sousa said referring to the acrimonious relations between India and Portugal in the aftermath of India’s annexation of Goa in 1961.
Among the agreements signed in his presence was a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Goa Shipyard Limited, a Defence PSU, and Portugal’s Estaleiros Navais De Peniche for design, construction and supply of ships in Africa and Latin American countries.
The Goa Government and the Aguas de Portugal (Portuguese water treatment and supply agency) also signed an agreement which will see the Portuguese help Goa assess its existing water supply projects as well as a study on removal of manganese in Goa’s water supply system.
