Friday, June 17 2005 20:41 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: With India vying for a seat in the UN Security Council (UNSC), the US has said it is ready to discuss its "expansion" but made it clear that it is not prepared to have reforms "sprint" out before other "extremely important" changes that have to take place.

The US is prepared "to discuss expansion of the Security Council, to discuss the criteria by which that should happen, to discuss the structure that such Security Council reform might take," Secretary of State Condolezza Rice told reporters in Washington yesterday (Jun 16, 2005) without mentioning names of any aspirant or number of members to be included in an enlarged setup.

"And we are having those discussions, and we look forward to exchange ideas with people as we do that," she said. "But, we are not prepared to have Security Council reform sprint out ahead of the other extremely important reforms that have to take place.

Management reform, Secretariat reform, peace building, issues about non-proliferation, issues about how we build a democracy fund," Rice said.

"These are core to what the UN is, and we are determined that this is going to go forward in a way that draws people's attention and people's commitment to those reform measures, too. We simply will not let Security Council reform sprint out ahead of other reforms," she said.

Her remarks came shortly after Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the US favoured a "modest expansion" of the UNSC, adding "two or so" permanent members, including Japan.

Burns, however, virtually rejected a proposal by India and three others G-4 countries that they would give up their demand for veto power for 15 years in return for their induction in the council, saying the privilege should be reserved for the current five permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the US.

On whether she has confidence in UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to lead the world body through this period, Rice said, "Yes. We have worked very closely with him. I have confidence in him. We do want a full and complete investigation of anything that might be there."

"And I believe that is under way and we await the results. We await the results but we have worked well with Kofi Annan and expect to continue to do so," Rice said.

She said it is time to get an up-or-down vote on John Bolton, the Bush Administration nominee for the post of Ambassadorship of the UN.

"He has answered questions in the Senate Foreign Relations Committees, they have debated it." Rice said that she has enormous respect for the deliberative process of the Senate but "I think we are seeing the effect for us of a UN reform process that is moving ahead rather rapidly without the United States have a Permanent Representative at the United Nations.

And it is time for us to get him there so that he can shepherd this very important process." It is important, she said, to have strong voice there to get people focused on what really has to be reformed about the United Nations.