Friday, September 2 2005 12:32 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: Asserting that the issue of Security Council expansion should be "consensus-driven", the US has said it wants progress in other areas of UN reforms, including human rights, before the issue is taken up by the world body.

The US supports Security Council expansion "at the appropriate time," Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Kristen Silverberg said at a press briefing in Washington.

"What we have said, what the Secretary has said and what Undersecretary (Nicholas) Burns and others have said, is that we would like to see progress on the other parts of the UN reform agenda before we move forward on this," he said.

"We have said that it needs to be a consensus-driven product."

Silverberg said the US will have to make sure it had "sufficient support" on the issue. "You know, obviously, this is something that is subject to ratification in our own country and the countries of other members of the P-5 (Security Council Permanent Members)."

He also pointed out that the US has laid out some criteria. "We have come up with a series of criteria that include commitment to the organisation, measured both by financial contributions or contributions to things like peacekeeping operations, size of the country, both in terms of economy and population. We have said that Japan meets those criteria.

The US is pushing "very hard on human rights council to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission", he said adding it proposed a "blanket exclusion" of the worst human rights offenders from the Council.