The US government reaffirmed last week its proposal to add "two or so" permanent seats and two or three non-permanent ones on the UN Security Council. The announcement is tantamount to a resounding "no" to the G4's plan for adding six new permanent seats to the council, though Washington did not actually said so, analysts said.  

Without winning the US over, Japan, Germany, India and Brazil, known as the G4, would hardly materialize their dream of occupying permanent seats on an enlarged council even if they force their plan for the council expansion through the 191-nation General Assembly, they predicted.

The US proposal contrasts sharply with that of the G4, which also calls for an increase of four non-permanent seats to expand the council to 25 seats from 15. The G4 has planned to table a framework draft resolution, which contains the council reform plan, to the General Assembly as early as this month.

The G4 resolution would need to receive a yes vote of two-thirds of members in the assembly. Under the group's three-step procedure to enlarge the council, the assembly will then select the six new permanent members and adopt a resolution for amending the UN Charter.

For the amendments to take effect, legislatures in two-thirds of the 191 UN members, including all permanent Security Council members, would need to ratify them. For the US, this would require the ratification of Congress, which has been critical of the UN.

The G4's council expansion plan was described last week by US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns as "possibly injurious to the effectiveness of the council." Unveiling the US proposal in Washington, he said two or so countries, including Japan, should become the council new permanent members and the council would be expanded to 19 to 20 seats.

Burns stressed that the US government only wants a "modest expansion" to keep the effectiveness of the council, which is currently made up of five permanent members with veto power and 10 elected members with two-year terms.

Apparently, the US government is worried that it would be more difficult for Washington to get a resolution through an enlarged council with 11 permanent members, diplomatic sources said, citing the strong opposition to the US-led war on Iraq in early 2003.

Another reason that led to the US opposition to the G4's plan is controversy and debate over it could distract attention to the priorities the US government hopes to pursue in reinventing the UN.

"We think it's essential that UN reform be viewed as a whole, and that no single issue be allowed to vault ahead of any others. In that sense, reform of the Security Council while very important, cannot be the exclusive focus of our attention," Burns said.

"We don't want to see all the oxygen sucked out of the room in the General Assembly ... by the Security Council debate," he stressed.

According to US Ambassador to the UN Anne Patterson, the US believes that in the UN reforms, priorities should be given to management, human rights, economic development, terrorism, non-proliferation and peace building.

She told reporters last week, "I question whether we would accept Security Council reform before we had a package of reforms that was acceptable to the US and to our Congress."

Diplomats here said that neither the US administration nor the Congress would like an over-sized Security Council that would not act "effectively" as Washington wishes. And the best way to prevent such a scenario is to block or delay the G4's plan to ask for a vote on their framework resolution.

"Our immediate goal is to get the G4 to hold off in calling for a vote on their resolution because it is so divisive that a vote, regardless of the outcome, could do serious, long-term damage to the UN as institution," US Acting Assistant Secretary Philo Dibble told the House Appropriations Subcommittee last Wednesday.

The G4's resolution has been strongly opposed by Italy, Pakistan, South Korea, Mexico and dozens of other nations, which favor increasing the non-permanent council seats from 10 to 20 and call for consensus on the council reform to avoid a rift among the UN membership.

Some diplomats described the US stand on supporting Japan and another unidentified country for the expanded UN Security Council as a move to split the G4. They say the US would probably prefer India, but Germany would be excluded.

The diplomats said that Germany's opposition to the US-led war in Iraq was a factor in Washington's bid to have only two countries accepted as permanent council members.

"On the surface, (the US) supports Japan's inclusion in the council. But it intends to split the four countries' unity," a Japanese diplomat said.

After a meeting in Brussels last Thursday, the foreign ministers of the G4 announced that the group is resolved to request a vote on the framework resolution after the African Union and the Caribbean Community hold respective summits in early July.

But with the US piling pressure on them and many countries still undecided on the council reform, diplomats said it remains unknown whether the four countries would take action as scheduled and it has already seemed that they might miss their target of introducing the resolution to the General Assembly in June. 

(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2005)