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| Sunday, 17 July 2005 |
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Security Council aspirants to hold key UN talks UNITED NATIONS, July 16 (AFP) - Foreign ministers of Brazil, Germany, India and Japan had converged on the United Nations for key talks Sunday to enlist African support for their joint bid to become permanent members of the UN Security Council. Brazil's Celso Amorim, Germany's Joschka Fischer, India's Natwar Singh and Japan's Nobutaka Machimura were to meet at India's UN mission here to discuss strategy ahead of a planned meeting with an African Union delegation led by their Nigerian counterpart Olu Adeniji. "We are trying to get a consensus (with the Africans)," a Japanese diplomat said. The G4 introduced a draft resolution in the General Assembly this week, seeking to enlarge the powerful Security Council from its current 15 members to 25, with six new permanent seats without veto power and four non-permanent seats. Under the proposal, strongly opposed by a number of countries, including the United States, Pakistan and Algeria, the G4 countries would get a permanent council seat each and the other two would go to Africa.At present, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States have the only permanent and veto-wielding members on the council, which also has 10 rotating non-permanent members without veto power. The G4 draft requires a two-thirds majority vote in the General Assembly - 128 votes out of 191 - to be adopted and the support of the 54-member African bloc is seen as critical for passage. But African countries have submitted their own draft demanding two veto-wielding permanent council seats for their continent.Adeniji has however indicated that his team was prepared to compromise on the issue of veto power in negotiations with other groups, including the G4. The G4 foreign ministers have scheduled a meeting with the current president of the UN General Assembly, Jean Ping of Gabon, for Sunday morning before meeting with their African counterparts. Meanwhile a "United for Consensus" group led by Pakistan, Argentina, Canada, Italy and Mexico is circulating a third draft seeking 10 new non-permanent council members who would be elected for two years as is the case at present, but with the possibility of immediate reelection. Washington favors adding only two new permanent seats with no veto power to the council, including one for Japan.Failure to reach an accommodation would set back the proposed expansion of the Security Council, which is part of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's broader plan to overhaul the United Nations 60 years after its creation. |
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