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UNITED NATIONS: Burkina-Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia,
Libya and Vietnam were Tuesday elected nonpermanent members of the
UN Security Council for two years beginning next January 1.
Five nonpermanent seats on the
15-member Security Council were up for grabs.
Burkina-Faso, Libya and Vietnam,
which had the support of their regional groups, were elected by
secret ballot in the first round of voting by the 192-member General
Assembly to succeed Congo, Ghana and Qatar.
Burkina Faso received 185 out of
190 valid ballots cast, Vietnam 183 and Libya 178.
Costa Rica and Croatia were
elected in their groups after their respective opponents—the
Dominican Republic and the Czech Republic—withdrew in the third
round following two earlier inconclusive rounds of balloting.
The winners, who needed a
two-thirds majority, will take their seats on the panel on January
1.
“I’m glad we got elected in
the first round,” Vietnam’s UN Ambassador Le Luong Minh. “That
reflects the trust of member states in our ability and
responsibility to fulfill our obligations. We will be a responsible
member of the United Nations and of the council.”
Libya’s UN Ambassador Giadalla
Ettalhi also hailed his country’s election.
“I think for us it has a very
important meaning being elected to the Security Council by a very
high score,” he said. “It means we are back in the international
community. All the problems we have faced in the past are now behind
us.”
Libya had long been considered an
international pariah after it was censured by the Security Council
for its refusal to surrender Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103.
But Washington early this month
said it would not campaigning against Libya’s bid to join the
council, in what was seen as another move to end the oil-rich North
African state’s diplomatic isolation.
In May 2006, Washington renewed
diplomatic ties with Libya, ending a 25-year-old diplomatic battle
with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi and taking the country off the US
list of nations accused of supporting terrorism.
The move followed Kadhafi’s
announcement he was renouncing a weapons of mass destruction
program.
US deputy ambassador to the UN
Alejandro Wolff said his delegation looked forward “to working
with all new members that are elected.”
The powerful Security Council is
made up of five veto-wielding permanent members—Britain, China,
France, Russia and the United States—and 10 nonpermanent members,
elected every year by groups of five for two-year mandates that
cannot be immediately renewed.
Nonpermanent members South
Africa, Belgium, Indonesia, Italy and Panama will stay on the
council until the end of 2008.
--AFP
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