Kazakhstan Wins Seat On UN Security Council

KUALA LUMPUR, June 30 (Bernama) -- It had been a gruelling six-year campaign for Kazakh leaders and diplomats who travelled far and wide lobbying nations to support Kazakhstan's bid to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Their efforts have paid off - Tuesday, the Central Asian nation was elected by the United Nations General Assembly to serve on the UNSC as a non-permanent member for a period of two years, starting Jan 1, 2017. Kazakhstan won the seat reserved for the Asia Pacific region and it received 138 votes against Thailand’s 55. Foreign reports have quoted Kazakh diplomats as saying that the nation would, as a non-permanent UNSC member, seek to represent the interests of the whole of Central Asia and raise important issues for the region. According to the diplomats, Kazakhstan has put forward four priorities for its future work in the UNSC: nuclear, energy, water and food security. They said in advancing these priorities in the main body of multilateral diplomacy in the world, Kazakhstan intends to closely cooperate with all partners without exception, including members of the UNSC and the UN as a whole. Kazakhstan first declared its candidacy for non-permanent membership on the UNSC in June 2010. Since then, Kazakh diplomats have made consistent efforts to bring to the international community practical information and the validity of the country’s bid to obtain support from the widest possible range of UN member states. Kazakhstan's sterling non-proliferation credentials, as well as its efforts to resolve global conflicts and embrace multi-ethnic, multicultural and multireligious harmony have helped in its bid to win the UNSC non-permanent seat, said Kazakh Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov in a recent article he wrote for US political website The Hill. "The trust we have built enabled us to help mediate, for example, in the crises in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and to play our part in breaking the deadlock of Iran’s nuclear programme," he wrote. At Tuesday's election, the 193-member UN General Assembly voted by secret ballot for five non-permanent seats on the UNSC. Besides Kazakhstan, Sweden, Bolivia and Ethiopia were also elected to serve on the Council. However, one non-permanent seat remains to be filled, with Italy and the Netherlands vying for it. The newly-elected countries will replace Spain, Malaysia, New Zealand, Angola and Venezuela. The Security Council has 15 members, including five permanent, namely China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Its 10 non-permanent seats are allocated according to a rotation pattern set by the General Assembly in 1963, to ensure a proportionate representation over time from the different parts of the world: five from African and Asian States; one from Eastern European States; two from Latin American States; and two from Western European and other States. -- BERNAMA