Presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Senator John McCain has strongly supported India’s entry into the elite G-8 while calling for Russia’s ejection to make it “again a club of leading market democracies.”

“We should start by ensuring that the G-8, the group of eight highly industrialized states, becomes again a club of leading market democracies: it should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia,” McCain, who has sealed his nomination for the November Presidential election, said in a major foreign policy speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.

“Rather than tolerate Russia’s nuclear blackmail or cyber attacks, Western nations should make clear that the solidarity of NATO, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is indivisible and that the organisation’s doors remain open to all democracies committed to the defence of freedom,” the 71-year-old Vietnam veteran said.

While the United States must play a central role in shaping the future, McCain said it will have to come to terms to the changing power equations in the world.

“Today we are not alone. There is the powerful collective voice of the European Union, and there are the great nations of India and Japan, Australia and Brazil, South Korea and South Africa, Turkey and Israel, to name just a few of the leading democracies. There are also the increasingly powerful nations of China and Russia that wield great influence in the international system,” he said.

G-8 members Britain and France have also supported India’s inclusion into the grouping. The other members are Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States. These countries represent about 65 per cent of world economy.

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