UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Saturday expressed his preference that his successor would be an Asian.

Although the succession issue is obviously for the member states to decide, "there is a general sense that it's now time for Asia and that the next secretary general should come from this region," Annan said in a press conference on the sidelines of the Asian-African Summit in Jakarta. On the occasion, Annan underlined the need of reform in the UN Security Council.

"I believe the time has come for us to really reform the council and everybody agrees that the council is in the need of reform, and I hope this time we will succeed," he said.

In its press release distributed Saturday, the world body says the Security Council should be broadly representative of the "realities of power in today's world."

Source: Xinhua