NEW YORK — After months of inaction over how to make the UN Security Council more reflective of today's world, the Clinton administration is to recommend that three permanent seats be given to developing nations, a senior American official said Wednesday.
The decision to move beyond a 5-year-old policy of supporting permanent membership for only Japan and Germany came in a new administration review that also gave the go-ahead to Bill Richardson, the U.S. representative, to begin pressing for quicker action on restructuring the council.
The announcement also came on the day Secretary General Kofi Annan unveiled a sweeping overhaul plan for the UN, a plan that immediately drew support from the White House but is likely to draw fire in Congress.
The five current permanent members of the Security Council are the U.S., Britain, China, France and Russia. Ten other council seats are held for two years by countries selected from regional groups.
"The fact that they are prepared to accept developing countries as permanent members is a progressive move," said Prakash Shah, India's representative, who was at a meeting Wednesday during which Richardson outlined his ideas. Richardson is to announce the policy Thursday, an aide said.
"The message we are sending is that we want to be players on Security Council reform and that we are ready to admit three developing countries to shake up this languishing process," Richardson said in an interview Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Annan, promising a "quiet revolution" at the UN, proposed the most sweeping reforms in UN history, vowing to streamline the bureaucracy, reduce staff and cut budgets.
The plan is designed to reduce administrative costs 30 percent and enable the UN to continue its work with 25 percent fewer employees than in 1985.
It also recommends that the General Assembly shorten its annual sessions, revise its budget formula and appoint a commission to study changes in the UN Charter and independent UN agencies.
But the plan did not address some key congressional demands, including a reduction in U.S. dues and crediting the United States for some of the money it spent supporting peacekeeping operations.
That requires the approval of the 185-member General Assembly, where hostility to the United States runs strong.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Wednesday that she was "very pleased" that Annan had put forward a plan, though adding she had not seen all the details. But she echoed congressional concerns in saying, "We need to have a renegotiation of our assessment rate."
Under the American plan, developing countries would be left to decide how to choose who would fill the new permanent seats, and whether these seats would be rotated. Fierce rivalries already have emerged in several regions that could make consensus difficult.
The United States still has some disagreements with developing nations over the final size of the council and the question of whether veto power would be limited in any way. Washington wants a council confined to no more than 20 or 21 members, doubling the permanent members to 10 but keeping non-permanent seats at 10, or maybe adding one.
The United States and some other nations say a large council would be unwieldy and ineffective. Razali Ismail, Malaysia's representative and the president of the General Assembly, has proposed increasing the council to 24 members by adding five permanent and four non-permanent seats.