The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has suggested establishing six semi-permanent Security Council seats as an interim solution for expanding the body.
This will enable the entry of strong contenders like India into the council.
"We need to bring the council's structure and membership in line with the realities of the twenty-first century, and not maintain agreements that cover geopolitical realities of 1945," when the United Nations was established, he said.
"So I would hope that the proposal on the table, that would expand the council to 25, and either create six more permanent seats without veto, or six semi-permanent seats, will propel the Member States forward," he added.
Making a strong pitch for reforms, Annan told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that unless the council is expanded, the solutions to various issues would continue to be elusive.
Stressing that the expansion of the council cannot wait for another ten years, Annan said the structure of the council has caused quite a lot of problems, even in the reform process, because member states tend to look at everything now through the prism of power -- who has power, who is going to gain power, and who is going to lose, particularly when most of them believe that the UN has too narrow a power base focused on five countries.
Any proposal put forward for reforms, he said, is seen in terms of which group is going to win and which group is going to lose.
Emphasising that the behaviour of permanent five members has not been helpful in the reform process, Annan pointed out that when the setting up of the peace-building commission was being considered, they demanded automatic membership for themselves and got it.
When the issue of constitution of Human Rights Council came up, they once again demanded automatic membership but the member states opposed it and they backed off, he added.
"When this sort of thing happens, the smaller countries and the large number of non-aligned governments believe that the appetite for power amongst the P-5 is insatiable," he said.
Unfortunately, he said, he did not have enough time to push for this sort of compromise or help them come up with a consensus. "But I hope my successor will work with the like-minded governments and find a solution to it. It is absolutely essential that the Council be reformed," he added.
India is among the countries that are strong candidates for becoming permanent members of the Council and join current permanent five (the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China).
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