India, Brazil Germany and Japan who are seeking permanent membership in an expanded UN Security Council have agreed to a 15-year freeze on the right of veto for new members, reports Xinhua.

The four countries, collectively known as the G-4, distributed a new draft resolution Wednesday under which new permanent members would not exercise the right of veto until 2020, at the earliest.

"The new permanent members shall not exercise the right of veto" until after the General Assembly meets to review the council 15 years after the proposed expansion comes into force, the new draft said.

The review conference would decide on the question of expansion of veto power to new permanent members, according to the draft.

The G-4 want the 191-nation General Assembly to adopt a framework resolution in June that would add six new permanent members and four new non-permanent seats to the Security Council.

The council, the only UN organ whose decision is binding on all member states, is currently composed of permanent members with veto power and 10 elected non-permanent members with two-year terms.

Adoption of the draft by the General Assembly, a session of which has been suggested in the resolution, requires a two-thirds majority. Under a three-step procedure proposed by G-4, the assembly would vote on the draft as early as this month, then elect new permanent members in mid-July and adopt a resolution to amend the UN Charter.

Ratification of an amended UN charter needs the approval of legislatures in two-thirds of the UN member states including those of the five current permanent Security Council members - the US, China, Russia, Britain and France.

After orally presenting the new draft at a meeting of some 160 countries Wednesday afternoon, German Ambassador Gunter Pleuger told reporters the G-4 would stick to its timetable and France would co-sponsor the new draft.

He also categorically denied reports that the G-4 might postpone putting its framework draft resolution to a vote in the General Assembly until July, as indicated earlier this week by the Japanese foreign minister.

While acknowledging that the new G-4 draft was an improvement, Russian Ambassador Andrey Denisov said there it still had a long way to go to gain the broadest possible agreement among the UN member states.

G-4's plan for the council's expansion has been strongly opposed by Italy, Pakistan, Mexico and several countries that have called for an increase in the non-permanent members of the council from 10 to 20 and want a broad consensus on the issue of such an enlargement.