United Nations: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's maiden effort at restructuring the secretariat has hit a road block with the nonaligned members expressing strong opposition to the proposals to bifurcate the peacekeeping department and downgrade disarmament department.

Ban's Chef de Cabinet Vijay Nambiar met the members of the 116-member Non Aligned Movement (NAM) yesterday to explain Ban's plan to restructure the secretariat to make it more efficient.

Without going into details of the discussions, NAM diplomats said the two proposals were not acceptable to them and they would resist them with all their strength.

They said some of the European Union countries too oppose the suggested changes and even if some in NAM members decide to support the proposals under pressure from one or more major powers, there would still be enough strength to block the move.

Diplomats said it does not make sense to bifurcate the peacekeeping department into mission support and operational wings. That was the model which the United Nations had in the beginning but it was found unworkable and hence the change was made.

"There is no use of repeating what is historically proved to be mistake," a senior diplomat said.

But he also emphasized that this is the beginning of the discussion and ideas could take sometime to crystallize.

However, he said the secretariat restructuring should be seen in the overall context of UN reforms which include expansion of the 15-member Security Council for which India is a leading candidate.