September 04, 2008	Thursday	Ramazan 3, 1429

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 3: The UN General Assembly’s working group entrusted to evolve a consensus on the expansion of the 15-member Security Council failed to reach an agreement on the enlargement of the council, diplomats here said on Tuesday.

Although most of the 192 member states agree that the Security Council, the most powerful organ of the world body, should be expanded to make it more representative but they are unable to agree on the category in which the expansion should take place.

A group of states led by India, Japan, Brazil and Germany, all contenders for permanent membership of the council seek to expand the council by 16 seats — six permanent and 10-non permanent seats.

However, the “Uniting For Consensus” (UFC) group led by Pakistan and Italy, firmly opposes any expansion of the permanent members on the Security Council and advocates the council’s enlargement in the non-permanent category and a provision for semi-permanent seats suggesting that some countries could sit on the council for more than two years as stipulated for the non-permanent members. However, the UFC opposed giving veto powers to any new member saying it tends to create new centres of privilege.