June 20, 2005
UN Council Aspirants to Plot Next Step in Brussels
By REUTERS 
Filed at 8:02 p.m. ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Foreign ministers of the four contenders for permanent U.N. Security Council seats intend to meet in Brussels to plot strategy for a now-postponed vote in the U.N. General Assembly, diplomats said on Monday.
The four -- Japan, Germany, India and Brazil -- will be conferring on the fringes of an international conference on Iraq on Wednesday on their U.N. General Assembly resolution to increase the council from 15 to 24 members. The United States has mounted a last-minute campaign against the resolution.
Brazil's U.N. ambassador, Ronaldo Mota Sardenberg, told reporters that the vote would be scheduled after the 53-nation African Union summit in Libya that ends on July 5.
Brazil, Japan, Germany and India, known as the Group of Four or G-4, have circulated a resolution that would call for six additional permanent council seats, including two for Africa and four more nonpermanent seats. They also proposed deferring any veto rights for another 15 years.
Sardenberg said the African nations had requested the delay, which diplomats said could complicate the quest for a vote on a resolution setting down a framework without filling in the names of the candidate countries. The four contenders had wanted a vote in the assembly next week.
There is a dispute between South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt for the two seats. And at previous meetings, the AU had wanted a higher number of nonpermanent seats.
The G-4 plan is the only one with traction at the moment, but the threshold for adoption is high -- two-thirds of all 191 General Assembly members, rather than only those voting, must approve it.
Currently, the council has 15 members, five of them permanent with veto power -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- and 10 nations rotating for two-year terms.
To change the Security Council takes three steps: a vote in the General Assembly on a framework resolution, a second vote to fill in the names of candidates. The third step is to change the U.N. Charter, over which national legislatures of the current five permanent council members have veto power.
Pressure for reform of the council came this year from Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who said the assembly should take a position after more than a decade of discussions. He argued the Security Council, which decides on war and peace, still reflected the balance of power in 1945.
U.S. ENTERS DEBATE LATE
The United States, which has not put down any of its own proposals, intends to present its position at the United Nations for the first time in a closed meeting on Tuesday.
But in a preview, Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state, last week said Washington wanted two ``or so'' additional permanent members and two or three nonpermanent ones, about half the number the G-4 as well as its rivals have proposed.
And he made clear the entire issue of council expansion reform could wait and not overshadow other major reform proposals put forth by Annan for a U.N. summit in September.
The United States openly supports a seat for Japan but has not supported a resolution that would make this possible. It is known to oppose Germany.
Burns said criteria for Security Council members should include a nation's population, wealth and democratic, financial and military contributions to the United Nations, which could apply to any of the G-4 contenders.
Among the other permanent members, China opposes Japan; Russia has not made its position clear although it is expected to side with the United States, and France and Britain support the G-4.