¡¡UNITED NATIONS, July 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The 53-nation African Union presented a draft resolution to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday calling for adding six permanent members, with the veto power, and five elected members to the UN Security Council, African diplomats said.

    The diplomats said the draft is currently co-sponsored by 36 African nations and the remaining 17 African Union member states are expected to join their peers in the next few days. But they declined to reveal the names of the present co-sponsors.

    "Africa has a position which it wants to place on the record but the African Union does not exclude negotiations with other groups," Nigerian Foreign Minister Olu Adeniji told reporters after meeting with General Assembly President Jean Ping in New York.

    Adeniji and his counterparts from some other African nations are expected to meet with various groups over the Security Council reform, including the Group of Four -- Japan, Brazil, India and Germany. The four countries are aspirants to permanent seats on the council.

    German diplomats said G-4 foreign ministers will arrive in New York on Sunday to meet with Adeniji and his African counterparts in a bid to hammer out a compromise position on the expansion of the Security Council.

    The G-4 hopes to get the backing of the 53-nation African Unionfor its draft resolution on the council's enlargement, which callsfor increasing six permanent seats and four non-permanent ones on the powerful UN organ.

    The G-4 resolution also proposes freezing the veto power for new permanent council members for 15 years. But the African Union wants the veto power for new permanent members right away. Either of the two drafts calls for the allocation of two permanent seats to Africa.

    The Security Council is currently composed of five permanent members -- China, Russia, France, Britain and the United States --and 10 elected members with two-year terms.

    A group called Uniting for Consensus, led by Italy, Pakistan, South Korea, Argentina and Mexico, has circulated its own draft resolution calling for increasing 10 non-permanent council seats.

    "No single group has the vote, every group needs support. I must say also that there is hardly any group that can get their resolution adopted without the bloc vote of Africa," Adeniji said.     

    "Everything in the draft resolution, everything in any draft resolution, until it is adopted, is still up for negotiations because it is a game of numbers," he said.

    A council reform resolution requires the backing of at least two-thirds of the 191 UN member countries, or 128 "yes" votes, to be approved by the General Assembly.    Enditem