Foreign ministers from Brazil, India, Germany and Japan failed to reach agreement on Sunday with the African Union on rival bids for UN Security Council enlargement but pledged to continue negotiations.

"Our differences are much smaller than our similarities," Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told reporters after a meeting among the four aspirants for permanent council seats and ministers or their deputies from Nigeria, Libya, South Africa and Egypt.

India's UN ambassador, Nirupam Sen, said the ministers from the eight nations expected to meet again in Geneva on July 25 while a small group of UN ambassadors would carry out talks in New York.

Without the 53-member African Union, Brazil, India, Germany and Japan have little hope of getting approval from two-thirds or 128 nations in the 191-member General Assembly.

"We can't both win," Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh said. "It's not possible for any group to get two-thirds by itself. So we have to find a way for our differences not only to narrow, but to disappear."

After a series of delays, the four aspirants are hoping for a General Assembly vote on enlargement of the 15-member body -- whose composition reflects the balance of power at the end of World War Two -- during the last week of this month.

The appearance in New York of the foreign ministers underlined the importance of the issue in face of severe obstacles. The United States and China, current permanent council members, are lobbying against all the plans under consideration.

Among the other three permanent members, Russia also indicated disagreement while France and Britain support the four aspirants.

Two-thirds approval

The first steps in expansion of the council needs two-thirds approval from the General Assembly. But eventually, there would need to be a UN Charter change, and here the current five permanent members can use their veto power.

Expanding the Security Council has been under discussion for a dozen years without a solution, mainly because each region or nation has its own aspirations. The issue was given momentum this year by Secretary-General Kofi Annan who argued the council was unrepresentative and should be reformed before a September UN world summit.

Germany, Japan, Brazil and India have called on the General Assembly to enlarge the Security Council from 15 to 25. This plan has six new permanent seats, including two for Africa but without veto power for any new member.

The African Union's draft resolution asks for the council to be enlarged to 26 seats, one more permanent seat than the four aspirants. It advocates six new permanent seats with veto privileges.

Attending the negotiations, in addition to Amorim and Singh, were Foreign Ministers Joschka Fischer of Germany, Nobutaka Machimura of Japan, Oluyemi Adeniji of Nigeria, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa, Egypt's deputy foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry and Libya's African Affairs Minister Ali al-Triki.

"We have made as much progress as we can today," said Nigeria's Adeniji, whose country holds the African Union presidency. "During the course of this week we will have as many meetings as it takes among our representatives. "

Fischer told German reporters there could not be any compromise on giving veto rights to new council members.

A third proposal, circulated but not introduced, by a group called "Uniting for Consensus" calls for 10 new members, all of them nonpermanent, with seats for varying terms. This group includes Italy, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, South Korea, Pakistan, Canada and others.

(Chinadaily.com via agencies July 18, 2005)