Japan, not Iran, will represent Asia on the UN Security Council

The UN General Assembly elected five new non-permanent members of the Security Council. The main intrigue was the question of whether Iran, which is under international sanctions, will get into the UN Security Council. As a result, the United States and its allies managed to prevent Tehran from gaining access to the levers of world power. As an alternative to Iran, the candidacy of Tokyo was proposed, which made huge financial injections into the UN budget and received an overwhelming majority of votes. With details - RIA Novosti correspondent in New York DMITRY GORNOSTAYEV, especially for Kommersant.

Partial rotation of the UN Security Council occurs annually. At the end of a two-year mandate, five of the ten non-permanent members of the Security Council are re-elected on a regional basis. This year, five contenders from Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia were to fill the seats being vacated by South Africa, Panama, Belgium, Italy and Indonesia. Mexico and Uganda, nominated by their regions on the basis of consensus, were guaranteed a seat in the Security Council. However, competition developed in the European and Asian groups.

At the same time, the most pressing question was whether Iran would get into the Security Council, or whether Japan would get the Asian seat. Let us recall that Tehran is under sanctions from the UN Security Council for refusing to freeze its nuclear and missile programs, and its election to this body that punished it would look paradoxical. At the same time, the UN charter documents do not prohibit the election of a country under sanctions to the Security Council. This circumstance allowed Iran to run for the seat of Indonesia, despite the storm of indignation from a number of countries, primarily the United States and Israel.

The excitement that did not leave the members of the delegations before the start of the secret vote was transmitted to the chairman Miguel d'Escoto Brockman. Having opened the meeting of the General Assembly, Mr. Brockman immediately made a mistake: when announcing the countries whose representatives were included in the counting commission, instead of Australia he named Austria, which was a candidate from Europe and could not participate in the counting of votes. Quiet laughter echoed throughout the room, and everyone looked towards the embarrassed Australian representative.

The curiosity associated with Australia arose for the second time when the chairman began to announce the results of the counting of votes cast for Austria. As it turned out, someone mistakenly voted for Australia, although this country did not put forward its candidacy. This time the laughter in the hall was much louder. However, this lost vote for Austria did not prevent it from beating Iceland by 36 votes (133 against 87). Second place in the European quota went to Turkey (151 votes).

As for the main match between Tehran and Tokyo, it ended in a convincing victory for the Japanese side, which received 158 votes. Iran was supported by only 32 delegations.

Speaking to reporters, Japanese Permanent Representative Yukio Tokasu hastened to assure them that Tokyo will be a responsible member of the Security Council and will concentrate its main efforts on solving Asian problems - Afghanistan and Myanmar, as well as the problems of Sudan.

Meanwhile, Tehran’s sensitive defeat did not go unnoticed by its main opponents, who did not hide their wild joy. Among them was the British permanent representative to the UN, John Sawyers. “This collective feat, this public flogging of Iran, is an important signal of the concern of UN members about the actions of this country,” said the British diplomat. His thoughts were complemented by US Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Alejandro Wolf. “It is important that Iran understands that its continued violation of binding Security Council resolutions has led to such a meager result for it,” Mr. Wolf concluded.

The Iranian delegation avoided public controversy, but in its statement the Islamic republic's permanent mission pointed to "dishonest behavior and a campaign of deceitful propaganda launched by prominent leading powers" against Iran.

Let us recall that, while campaigning for its election, Tehran relied on the fact that Iran, the founding country of the United Nations, was a member of the Security Council only once - in the mid-1950s, while Japan, a country defeated in the war , was already serving her tenth term on the UN Security Council.

Meanwhile, as diplomats from various delegations confirmed after the vote, Tokyo’s candidacy was proposed precisely to counter Tehran. According to one version, Japan initially had no intention of nominating this year, because it had just recently, in 2006, completed its ninth term in the Security Council.

The reliability of the “Japanese weapons” was due to Tokyo’s huge financial injections into the UN treasury. Let us recall that Japan's contribution to the organization's budget is one fifth of it. Member States, especially those from developing countries, are well aware that they receive material, humanitarian and technical support through UN programs thanks to Japanese money. In this regard, they simply could not once again refuse the Japanese.

Thus, Iranian diplomacy, which tried to play on its role in the history of the UN, as well as on the anti-American sentiments widespread among some developing countries, never found any compelling arguments against Tokyo’s main and only argument - Japanese capital.

Far away from your neighbor