Four nations devise plan to expand UN Security Council

By ANNE PENKETH in New York


Four nations have announced their intention to support each others' candidacies as permanent members of the UN Security Council in order to make the UN's executive body more representative and legitimate for the 21st century.

Germany, Japan, Brazil and India issued a joint statement in an attempt to break the logjam that has stalled the expansion of the 15-member UN Security Council for years.

Britain and the United States, which like the other three permanent members have refused any dilution of their veto power, are partly responsible for the issue of council reform dragging on for so long.

The joint statement issued on Tuesday night, after a meeting of the leaders of the two major industrial powers and two nations from the developing world in a New York hotel, was also a tactical move aimed at heading off proposals for "semi-permanent" seats on the council, which would be elected for four or five year renewable terms.

The statement said that the four were putting forward their candidacies as "legitimate" permanent members because the council "must be representative, legitimate and effective" and should therefore include developed and developing countries as new permanent members. The four also stressed that "Africa must also be represented in the permanent membership of the Security Council."

But no African leader was present at their meeting because the continent has no agreed candidate - South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt all lay claim to a permanent seat. The initiative has the merit of injecting new momentum into the issue of Security Council reform which the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, now sees as a priority in the light of the Iraq experience.

Until now, the 191-nation UN General Assembly has been responsible for seeking a solution through a so-called "open-ended group," which became known as the "never-ending group" because of its failure to reach agreement.

At present, the UN Security Council has 5 permanent members, and 10 non-permanent members which are elected by the UN General Assembly for two-year terms. There is a consensus that the current structure is an anachronism, and that both permanent and non-permanent members should be increased to give the council a total of about 24 members. But the veto issue has bedevilled the debate.

Mr Annan has set up a high-level panel to provide some "out of the box" thinking on UN reform to deal with effective collective action, which would include Security Council reform.

A proposal being considered by the panel, which is due to report back to Mr Annan on December 1, is for eight semi-permanent members, which would stymie the aspirations of the four to become permanent members.

Brazilian President Lula said in his address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that "reform proposals that dress the current structure in new clothes and do not provide for an increase in the number of permanent members are manifestly insufficient."

The Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, said in his speech on Tuesday that his country's contribution to "peace-building and nation-building" provided "a solid basis for its assumption of permanent membership on the Security Council."

The German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, and the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, are expected to press their membership claim further in their speeches tomorrow.

All four countries are actively campaigning on the margins of the UN General Assembly to win support for their bid, which requires approval from two-thirds of the General Assembly and no veto to be successful.

The German minister is holding talks on Saturday with the leaders of the main African contenders. He is also lunching with Pacific island states this week in what one official described as "three dozen votes in one lunch."

But their initiative will not be plain sailing. India's claim is controversial in Asia because of its long-running dispute over Kashmir with Pakistan, which opposes Indian permanent membership. China has previously voiced doubts about Japan, Italy disapproves of Germany entering the council as a permanent member and Brazil is facing opposition from other Latin American states.

Britain supports increasing the council from 15 to 24 members, including 5 permanent members, and backs the candidacies of Japan, Germany, Brazil, India and an African country.

But Bill Rammell, the Foreign Office minister, said in New York this week that "the concept of say ten countries having a veto in the Security Council is not eminently sensible."

- INDEPENDENT