Brazil, Germany, India and Japan said Sunday they won't seek a vote on their plan for UN Security Council reform until the end of July while they negotiate with the 53-nation African Union.
The four countries' foreign ministers, meeting in New York with several African officials, acknowledged that they didn't have the necessary two-thirds support of the 191-member UN General Assembly without the Africans, who have their own plan for council change.
"It is not possible for any group to get a majority or two-thirds by itself," India's Foreign Minister Natwar Singh said. "So we have to find a way in which our differences are not only narrowed but they disappear."
The sides said they would negotiate over the next week and then meet again in Geneva on July 25 to discuss progress. They don't have much time, mostly because they hope to have a deal before a September summit of world leaders that will take place in New York.
In its current form, the 15-member council has five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US -- with veto power. Nations fill the other 10 seats in two-year rotating terms.
Most nations have agreed for years that the council is outdated, a reflection of the landscape of power from 1945, when the UN was formed. But each time they confront the issue, nations become embroiled in national rivalries -- India against Pakistan, China against Japan, Germany against Italy -- and progress stalls.
The negotiators are all working under shadows cast by the US and China, two permanent members of the current Security Council who have come out against the proposal. Both say the time isn't right for reform because the disagreements among nations are too great.
Member states get only one vote in the General Assembly, so US and Chinese support isn't necessary now. But several months or even years down the road, they have the power to block ratification of a deal to change the council.
Brazil, Germany, India and Japan, the so-called Group of Four, have proposed expanding the council from 15 to 25 members, adding six permanent seats without veto power and four non-permanent seats. Those four each want a permanent seat, with the other two earmarked for Africa.
They had clashed for months with a rival group called Uniting for Consensus, which doesn't want to create any new permanent members.
The African Union entered the fray just over a week ago as it announced its own plan for council reform, creating fears of a deadlock. The Africans had demanded two permanent seats with veto power -- something that the five current permanent members of the council will almost certainly never allow.
Both the Group of Four and African leaders said Sunday's meeting went well, though they acknowledged there was much work to be done. But they described their differences as more technical than anything else.
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