United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday certain ”major powers” should play a bigger role in the world body, but declined to name favourites for any new permanent seats on the Security Council.
”I have always maintained that no reform to the UN will be complete without a reform of the Security Council. We definitely need to bring the structure of the Security Council in line with today’s reality,” Annan said at a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
”It is no longer acceptable [that] major countries and major regional powers are not at the table and these are the powers we turn to when we have problems in regions. But when it comes to the centre where these decisions are taken, they are absent.”
Annan said that the Security Council needed to become more representative and democratic by expanding beyond the current permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
”I believe that if we do that, it will gain even more in legitimacy.”
He declined to be drawn on whether Germany should be among the chosen few but said: ”There is a limited number of ideal member states — Germany is one of them.
Germany has lobbied with Brazil, India and Japan as part of a so-called Group of Four for permanent seats as part of the first expansion of the council since the UN was founded in the aftermath of World War II.
But the bid has effectively been on ice since their initiative stalled last year in the face of US and Chinese opposition and insufficient backing from the 53-member African Union. — Sapa-AFP