NEW YORK, Sept 17: Japan’s Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura on Friday suggested his country may abandon its alliance with Brazil, Germany and India to get a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

The first bid for permanent membership launched last year by the Group of Four (G4), failed in the face of opposition from the United States and China and insufficient support from Africa.

“We need to think over whether we will continue as the G4 by looking back at our activity in the past year,” Kyodo news agency quoted Mr Machimura as telling some Japanese media.

Mr Machimura was in New York to support efforts to enlarge the UN Security Council. His comment came a day after the four countries vowed to make a new attempt for permanent membership in a meeting on the sidelines of the UN world summit.

Emerging from the G4 meeting on Thursday, Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh said ‘the G4 exists’.

“The G4 will continue to work for United Nations reform,” he said, adding their proposal could be reintroduced at the 60th session of the UN General Assembly with some changes.

The G4 had submitted a plan to boost the council’s membership from its current 15 to 25, with six new permanent seats and four new non-permanent seats.

A Japanese official who was in the G4 meeting said there would be a ‘thorough’ review of the plan to make it more appealing.

He added that it could be a G4 plan or a joint submission of the group with African nations.

—AFP