Friday, August 5 2005 10:30 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

United Nations: The efforts by G-4 nations, including India, to get permanent United Nations Security Council (UNSC) seats, suffered a jolt yesterday (August 4, 2005) with the 53-member African Union (AU) virtually rejecting their compromise formula and the United States (US) and China deciding to work together to defeat their framework resolution on expansion of the 15-member body.

Reports from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the African leaders met at an extraordinary summit, said the meeting rejected the G-4 suggestion that they accept two permanent seats without veto power.

The African leaders stuck to their demand for veto power and announced setting up of a 10-member panel to continue talks on the Council reforms.

Diplomats at the United Nations said the decision shows virtual split in the African Union and G-4 would now have to count votes of individual African nations before deciding how to proceed on their resolution.

The Group of Four (G-4) comprising India, Japan, Germany and Brazil, had proposed a 25-member council, adding six permanent seats without veto and four non-permanent seats.

The G4 had sent representatives to Addis Ababa in an effort to reach an agreement with the AU to win the two-thirds support of UN member states, needed to change the Security Council.

The G-4 nations, which had reached an agreement at London to move a joint resolution, were expected to call for a vote almost immediately after the summit but now they would need to take stock of the situation and decide on future action.

The summit's decision, however, did not come as a surprise to diplomats here as statements by AU ambassadors had already indicated that some of the members, led by Algeria and Kenya, were opposed to any compromise with the G-4.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who currently chairs AU, had at the very outset of the summit made it clear that a joint campaign with G-4 has much better chance to succeed and that would mean compromise at least on forgoing the right to veto for the new permanent members. But that apparently had not found resonance with members at the AU meet.

The G-4 resolution gives two seats to Africa with Nigeria and South Africa among the aspirants.

Attending the summit were Obasanjo, South African President Thabo Mbeki, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and representatives of 43 other AU member countries.

Both African Union leaders and G-4 have admitted that they cannot get the requisite two-thirds vote in the 191-member General Assembly without each other's support. The Assembly now has three resolutions before it moved by G-4, AU and Pakistan and Italy led 'Uniting for Consensus'.

Earlier, China's envoy to United Nations (UN) said Washington and Beijing have agreed to work together to block G-4 plans on UNSC expansion. Wang Guangya said he reached the agreement with his United States counterpart John Bolton because both believed the proposal would divide the UN's 191 member states.