U.S. expresses negative views about Japan's new UNSC reform idea
February 1, 2006
Yahoo
Original Source: http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060201/kyodo/d8fg5pmo3.html
 
(Kyodo) _ U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton expressed negative views Tuesday about Japan's new idea to reform the U.N. Security Council. 
Bolton told reporters at U.N. headquarters that he has seen no Security Council reform proposal able to obtain broad agreement. 
But Bolton added the United States is discussing a variety of ways to reform the council with Japan and has neither accepted nor rejected Japan's proposals to date. 
Japan has come up with a new idea for reforming the Security Council, calling for the expansion of the council membership from the current 15 to 21. 
Japan's new idea includes permanent and so-called semi-permanent members. 
Japan and three other countries -- Brazil, Germany and India --had sought to become permanent council members last year, submitting a joint resolution calling for the expansion of the membership to 25.  
But the Group of Four, as the countries called their grouping, failed to win support for the resolution from such major powers as China and the United States. 
Brazil, Germany and India resubmitted the same resolution in early January but Japan did not join them. 
The resubmitted resolution -- the same as last year's -- calls for adding six permanent and four nonpermanent seats to the council's five and 10, respectively, with a 15-year freeze on veto power for new permanent members.