BERLIN, May 11: Brazil, Germany, India and Japan have reached agreement on a collective strategy to achieve their aim of gaining a permanent seat on an expanded UN Security Council, it was reported on Wednesday. The German government is backing the three-stage plan, the Handelsblatt business daily said in an advance copy of Thursday’s edition.

The first step will be a UN resolution, on which the four countries are now agreed, establishing the principle of expanding the Security Council. This will not be submitted to vote by the UN General Assembly until the four hopefuls are sure of gaining the support of at least two thirds of the 191 member states, the report said.

The resolution calls for the Council to be expanded from 15 to 25 members. Among the 10 proposed new members, six would be permanent members and four non permanent.

The initial resolution will not include the names of any country, in a bid to overcome the opposition of some countries to certain candidates, Handelsblatt said. However the plan foresees two permanent members from Asia, two from Africa, one from Europe and one from Latin America, the report said.

Specific countries will only be named in a second resolution while a third, more technical resolution would propose changes to the UN Charter. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed in Moscow on Monday to speed up efforts to reform the United Nations.

The nations seeking a greater role in the United Nations argue that the current composition of the Security Council, giving veto power to Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States is outdated and fails to reflect today’s world order.

India’s bid for a seat has been opposed by Pakistan while other Latin American nations have questioned whether Portuguese-speaking Brazil is representative of the region.—AFP