UNITED NATIONS, July 28: Japan said on Wednesday that it could face strong public pressure to cut off its contribution to the United Nations if it fails to win a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Speaking at a press conference here, Japan’s Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said that Japan believed that its two-year campaign for a permanent seat on the UN most powerful body would be successful and had not considered what it would do if it failed.

He rejected charges levelled on Tuesday by the Italian ambassador to the UN that the G-4 countries, including Japan, were engaging in blackmail and financial threats to win support for their resolution. He said that it was just a ‘negative’ campaigning. Japan is the second-largest contributor to the UN behind the United States, paying 19 per cent of the $1.2 billion regular budget plus hundreds of millions of dollars more for UN peacekeeping, tribunals and other agencies. Its contribution is larger than the combined payments by the other four permanent members — Britain, France, Russia and China.

Japan along with Germany, India and Brazil has submitted a framework resolution which calls for the expansion of UN Security Council from 15 to 25 members, seeking six permanent seats and four non permanent seats.

The United for Consensus group on Tuesday unveiled its resolution, calling for 10 non-permanent seats and terming it ‘the fairest and most democratic approach to the complex and controversial question of Security Council enlargement’, while seeking the broadest possible consensus on how to proceed.

Mr Machimura recalled a recent town hall meeting in Japan where a speaker had said that Tokyo should reduce its contribution if it was unable to win the permanent seat.

“That kind of thinking will rapidly proliferate,” he said, adding that the Japanese government had not yet made any decision of what may transpire.

Asked about the vote on G-4 framework resolution, Mr Machimura indicated that the group would await the outcome of the 53-member African Union (AU) Summit, scheduled for August 4 in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, which would consider the compromise resolution in the light of discussions the foreign ministers of G-4 and the AU had in London last Sunday.

He said that the support of the African Union was essential for the G-4 resolution to get two-thirds majority but declined to go into number of the countries on whose support G-4 could definitely count.

Meanwhile, the African diplomats here admitted that the summit would have an uphill task to reconcile differences with Nigeria pressing for a compromise and Algeria, Egypt and some other members showing reservations.

Asked whether China would ultimately block the resolution when it came for approval by the Security Council, Mr Machimura said that he did not think that China would block the G-4 getting permanent membership if they were able to get two-thirds majority thrice in the General Assembly.

The amendment is to be ratified by two-thirds member states, including five permanent members, and it is at that stage that the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China would have veto.

The United States has warned that it will oppose any resolution which stipulates to expand the Security Council without broadest possible consensus.