'Outdated' UN Security Council 'undemocratic': Zuma

South Africa President Jacob Zuma gives a press conference on July 29, 2013 at the Unions Building in Pretoria. Zuma criticised the United Nations Security Council as 'outdated' and 'undemocratic' ahead of a world leaders' meeting in New York, according to a report Tuesday. (AFP/File)

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – South African President Jacob Zuma criticised the United Nations Security Council as 'outdated' and 'undemocratic' ahead of a world leaders' meeting in New York, according to a report Tuesday.

The current Security Council "might have by now outlived its usefulness", Zuma was quoted as saying in South Africa's Business Day newspaper.

Developing nations have called for reform to the Security Council, which has since World War II accorded veto rights on substantive resolutions to five permanent members, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China.

"You have a situation where those who possess the power of veto talk more war than peace," Zuma told South African journalists at the outset of the UN General Assembly meeting this week.

"You have a minority that has the last word and unfortunately is no longer helping. It is actually becoming part of the problem," he said, decrying the Council's actions over conflicts in Iraq and Libya over the past ten years.

"As small countries we believe the arrangement is unfair, it is undemocratic, it's not good any more."