African Union countries to back increasing permanent UNSC seats

Japan Policy & Politics, Feb 28, 2005

MBABANE, Swaziland, Feb. 22 Kyodo

Foreign ministers of African Union countries agreed Tuesday in Swaziland to support a U.N. panel's proposal to add six permanent seats to the U.N. Security Council, diplomatic sources said.

The African foreign ministers reached the accord at a closed-door session of the two-day African Union Commission Meeting on the U.N. Security Council, the sources said.

The ministers also agreed to urge the United Nations to grant veto power to permanent Security Council members newly allowed to join the council under the proposal.

The proposal is one of two options the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change released Nov. 30.

Japan, currently lobbying for a permanent Security Council seat, intends to make a joint proposal with the AU for a U.N. General Assembly draft resolution. It will include the U.N. proposal to increase the number of permanent Security Council members from 5 to 11.

The agreements made at the AU meeting will be endorsed by the AU's Executive Council of Foreign Ministers slated for March 7-8 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, before they are presented to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as the pan-African organization's stand on Security Council reform.

The AU foreign ministers also agreed to call for two of the proposed six new Security Council seats to be given to African countries, the sources said, adding they plan to choose which two African countries at the AU summit meeting to be held in July in Libya.

The five permanent Security Council members are Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.