July 15, 2005
Plans to Expand Security Council May Be Frustrated for Now
By WARREN HOGE
UNITED NATIONS, July 14 - Four countries that have mounted a joint diplomatic offensive to gain permanent seats on the Security Council - Brazil, Germany, India and Japan - are facing unexpectedly strong opposition from the United States, the African Union and regional rivals, just days before a decisive General Assembly vote. 
Alarmed at the development, the four are sending their foreign ministers to New York this weekend to try to salvage the effort, which has been particularly threatened by a proposal introduced Wednesday by the 53-member African Union and by a harsher than expected rejection from the United States.
Debate this week in the General Assembly has focused on three competing proposals for expanding the 15-member Security Council. 
The 191 United Nations members generally agree that enlargement is needed to reflect modern patterns of power in the world, but the prospect has exposed deep divisions and produced unusually sharp comment. 
Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the delegates on Tuesday to calm down and discuss the matter in a mature manner. On Wednesday he said an organization that went around the world lecturing everybody about democracy had to fix what he called the democracy deficit in its most important decision-making body.
The Security Council is currently made up of 10 members elected to two-year terms and the five veto-bearing permanent members, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. Broadening the Council is a critical part of Mr. Annan's overall program for the United Nations, and it will be the focus of a summit meeting in September that is expected to attract more than 170 heads of government. 
The proposal from the countries seeking permanent seats, known as the G-4 nations, is scheduled for a vote next week. 
It adds 10 new seats, for a total of 25, with 4 of them nonpermanent and 6 permanent, including 4 for themselves and 2 for Africa. Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa are considered the likely contesting candidates. 
The sponsors originally planned for the new permanent members to have the veto, but they dropped the idea when it proved unpopular.
A second proposal, which also calls for a 25-member Council, came from regional rivals of the G-4 countries, including Argentina, Italy, Pakistan, Mexico and South Korea. It would add 10 new two-year term seats with provisions for re-election but no new permanent members. 
Urging the General Assembly not to create new permanent members, Munir Akram, Pakistan's ambassador, warned, The seekers of special privileges and power masquerade as the champions of the weak and disadvantaged.
The third plan, advanced Wednesday by African states and proposing 26 Council positions, calls for six new permanent seats with veto power, including two for Africa, and five new nonpermanent seats, with two of them for Africa. 
Abdallah Baali, the ambassador of Algeria, caused consternation among the G-4 countries with an emphatic speech on Wednesday saying the veto and the additional two nonpermanent seats were nonnegotiable items for the Africans.
But Mr. Baali was rebuked Thursday by Olu Adeniji, the foreign minister of Nigeria, which currently holds the presidency of the 53-member African Union, the originator of the resolution. 
Saying the Algerian was mistaken in presuming to speak for the Africans, Mr. Adeniji said: You don't submit a draft to 191 member states and say, 'Take it or leave it.' That is a prescription for killing the draft before it even gets off.
The United States, which has endorsed the addition of Japan as a permanent member in principle but has not encouraged broader expansion, went further this week and said any enlargement of the Council was premature now because of the lack of consensus. 
Let me be as clear as possible, Shirin Tahir-Kheli, the State Department's adviser on United Nations reform, told the General Assembly on Tuesday, The U.S. does not think any proposal to expand the Security Council, including one based on our own ideas, should be voted upon at this stage.
She said that the four countries lobbying for permanent member status were all our friends and that the United States would work with them and others when a plan for Council enlargement could enjoy a broader consensus.
Any plan needs the votes of 128 of the General Assembly's 191 members to pass, and the G-4, already facing an uphill battle to reach that number, will be lobbying hard over the weekend for support from a large number of the 53 African states. They will argue that their plan has the best chance of passage and gives Africa two new permanent seats, a provision that Mr. Adeniji said was the only nonnegotiable item for the Africans.