WASHINGTON, June 16: The United States announced on Thursday it favoured adding at least two permanent members to the UN Security Council, including Japan, and would next week propose specific criteria for candidate countries.

Washington rejected as unwieldy a proposal by Japan, Brazil, India and Germany — known as the Group of Four — to enlarge the council from 15 to 25 members, and opposed giving a veto to newcomers.

“We will likely support adding two or so permanent members to the Security Council,” Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told reporters, stressing that Japan was the only country it had endorsed.

Burns did not name the other country Washington would back for admission into the Security Council. The five current permanent members are China, the United States, France, Britain and Russia.

The New York Times quoted an administration official as saying the second candidate would come from the developing world.

The United States wanted a ‘modest’ expansion of the council and the proposal by the Group of Four candidates is ‘not very digestible’, Burns said.

“We think that it is very important that the Security Council enlargement should not be confined to debate on which part of the world should be represented.”

The undersecretary for political affairs said other factors should be weighed, including the size and population of the country, its military capacity and potential to contribute to UN peacekeeping operations.

Additional elements, he said, were adherence to democracy and human rights principles, financial contribution to the world body, and a candidate’s record on counterterrorism and non-proliferation.

“We will introduce early next week at the General Assembly” a proposal laying out the criteria for eligibility for both permanent and non-permanent membership in the Security Council, Burns said.

“This is a new American idea,” he said.

His briefing came ahead of a Washington press conference by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later on Thursday, in which she was expected to elaborate on the US proposals.

Japan, India, Brazil and Germany have circulated a draft proposal that would add six new permanent seats and four non-permanent seats to the Security Council.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has proposed widespread reforms, including increasing the number of council seats to 24, welcomed the US proposals but said Washington will have to negotiate with other countries rather than impose its will.

Annan told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York that the UN “is an organization of member states large and small, and the way we do business is to discuss and come to an understanding — a broad agreement — and then to move forward.

“So if the US has proposals, they should put it on the table and discuss it with the others, and I think there are lots of proposals on the table now; now I would encourage the US to engage with the other member states and come up with a reform package.”

The White House and the State Department have come out against legislation that would withhold half of the United States’ UN dues unless the world body carried out reforms. But they did not threaten a veto by President George W. Bush.

“We do have concerns about the legislation,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said of a bill that threatened to withhold some 220 million dollars for one year. He said the Congress ought to ‘reconsider’.

The legislation would oblige the State Department to withhold 50 per cent of US dues if the UN’s performance falls short in some 40 specified areas. —AFP