South Africa welcomes the announcement from the USA that the country supports an expansion of the UN Security Council with two permanent seats for African countries.
At the same time, the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa criticizes the USA's stance of not allowing the two new permanent members to have veto power, which makes the African countries "second-class citizens".
The powerful UN Security Council consists of 15 member countries. The five permanent members, the USA, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom, all have veto power. The other members are elected for two-year periods. Three of these are earmarked for African countries.
The issue of the Security Council's composition and veto power within the council has been discussed for decades and has been driven, among others, by the Swedish top diplomat Jan Eliasson.
A change must be approved by two-thirds of the General Assembly's 193 member countries and also adopted by the five permanent member countries in the Security Council.
