3 • The African permanent representatives agreed to start elaborating an evolving negotiating strategy through an open, transparent and all inclusive process, with a view to push forward the African demands in the forthcoming consultations and when intergovernmental negotiations start. • The African Permanent Representatives to the United Nations will continue to take Ezulwini Consensus and Sirte Declaration as the basis of their positions in the consultations and the intergovernmental negotiations. OBSERVATIONS 4. Members of the C-10 may wish to consider the following in their deliberations: 1. Since general sympathy for the African Common Position has been sustained, it should remain the basis for the envisaged intergovernmental negotiations, amongst others. 2. The persisting gaps in the positions of the concerned groupings mentioned in the Report of the C10PRs underscore the need for the process to move to intergovernmental negotiations, beginning with consultations on both the negotiables and framework for negotiations. 3. The African Group and the C10PRs in New York have stressed the importance of unity, including in the consolidation of reports. The Group has initiated its internal preparation in anticipation of the envisaged intergovernmental negotiations. 4. The Committee should note a curious calculation at the end of the report, suggesting that the size of an expanded Security Council “would add up to less that 22 members”. 5. Given the wider picture of the reform process, the C-10PR believe that the following view of the Task Force on page 10 of the report deserves to be noted: “it should be recalled that deliberations aiming to reform the Security Council began in January 1994, and although the Working group has made progress, particularly during its sixty-first session, positions as summarized above still remain far apart. Moreover, a sense of frustration surrounds the present stage. We could eventually conclude, therefore, that there is simply not sufficient common ground to move the process forward toward fruitful intergovernmental negotiations. A possible outcome that member States should keep in mind is that the present deadlock would culminate, in practical terms, in an indefinite