India’s vote the talking point in Pak UN win
K.P. NAYAR
Manjeev Singh Puri (top); Abdullah Hussain Haroon
New York, Oct. 22: In winning a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council yesterday, Pakistan defeated itself.
Islamabad barely squeaked through and secured its two-year term with not even one vote more than the bare minimum required in the election.
Much more than Islamabad’s lacklustre election, the excitement in the General Assembly hall — where voting for five non-permanent seats continued throughout yesterday — was over India casting its vote in support of Pakistan.
In doing so, India’s acting permanent representative to the UN, Manjeev Singh Puri, returned Pakistan’s favour last year in voting in support of India in a similar election.
Till then, there was no precedent of the two neighbours voting for each other.
It was a far cry from 1975, when India and Pakistan fought each other for an Asian seat in the Security Council through eight bitterly contested rounds in the General Assembly. Alas, India lost to Pakistan after the eighth round then.
In the press stakeout area outside the General Assembly, Puri and Abdullah Hussain Haroon, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, hugged each other as Puri warmly congratulated Haroon.
Cheering them with broad grins were other diplomats at the UN and a large number of visitors who had arrived for this occasion, including Ravi Batra, a prominent New York lawyer who has played social diplomacy recently in bringing together the Indian and Pakistani envoys to the UN.
Haroon told NDTV in the stakeout area that “I have absolute confidence that they (India) voted for us”. Then he promised that “we will be talking a lot more” once India and Pakistan are both sitting at the Security Council’s horseshoe table.
Pakistan will take its seat on January 1 next year. India’s two-year elected term will end on December 31, 2012. Revealing that the two governments had discussed Islamabad’s candidature and agreed on Indian support for Pakistan, Haroon added that “we have been part of them, they have been part of us”.
He said “it is a great day for the subcontinent” that both the South Asian countries have been elected to serve together in the Security Council. “Asia is taking a leap into the world. We should be part of that leap.”
Despite the bonhomie, India’s 1975 defeat to Pakistan still rankles among South Block’s old UN hands. So does India’s humiliating rout at Japan’s hands in 1996.
India did not muster courage to contest for the Security Council for 14 years after that rout while Pakistan was once again elected in 2003. In all, Pakistan has so far served six terms in the Council.
Last year, India erased the blot of its defeats by winning the highest number of votes on record in any election to the Security Council in the previous six years.
New Delhi was not the choice for the 2011-12 Asian seat in the Council only for four members of the General Assembly among the 191 valid ballots cast in last year’s poll.
The General Assembly has 193 current members and two-thirds support among countries present and voting is required for election to the Security Council even if there is only one candidate for each geographical group at the UN.
Pakistan barely crossed that threshold for its election by securing just 129 votes, but that minimum figure enabled it to get elected in the first round itself.
Despite such poor showing, Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani today put the best face to the UN’s lack of enthusiasm for his country. The voting “demonstrated acknowledgement of Pakistan’s importance in the comity of nations”, Gilani said in Islamabad.
Haroon parried questions about Pakistan squeaking through by taking a practical view. “A win is a win,” he said.
Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar, who is better known for her fashion accessories than her diplomacy, said in a separate statement that “as in the past, Pakistan will play its constructive role in the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security”.
Among the other countries that got elected along with Pakistan in the first round, Guatemala received 191 votes.
Guatemala’s candidature was uncontested for the Latin American and Caribbean group’s seat. Morocco received 151 votes for an African seat. Voting for a second African seat went as far as the third round when Togo obtained 131 votes, two more than Pakistan and eliminated Mauritania from the race.
There was no outcome for a fifth seat from Europe. Neither Azerbaijan nor Slovenia could get to the threshold of two-thirds majority even after nine rounds of voting in which a third candidate, Hungary, was eliminated.
General Assembly president Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser said voting will continue on Monday.
Meanwhile, Talks are under way behind closed doors for a compromise between Azerbaijan and Slovenia so that one of them will pull out.
South Asian ambassadors at the UN are hoping that India’s election last year and Pakistan’s yesterday will be followed up by repeated and continuous representation for their region in the Security Council.
Until the mid-1990s there was an almost continuous South Asian presence on the Council with India, Pakistan, Nepal or Bangladesh occupying an Asian seat.
India’s vote the talking point in Pak UN win
Pakistan wins temporary UN council seat
By Huma Imtiaz
WASHINGTON: Winning the bare minimum required to win the hotly contested elections, Pakistan has won a seat as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for a two-year term.
Securing 129 out of 193 votes in the United Nations General Assembly – exactly the two-thirds majority required to win the seat, Pakistan will now be a non-permanent member, replacing Lebanon, of the United Nations Security Council in a term that begins on January 2012 and will end in December 2013.
The seat is on the Asia-Pacific and Africa group, where Pakistan will join India amongst other countries as non-permanent members. Morocco was also elected as a member of the non-permanent seats in the UNSC. Pakistan’s sole competitor for the Asia-Pacific seat Kyrgyzstan managed to garner 55 votes.
According to reports, Pakistan had secured support from India, China and the UAE amongst other countries to help it win the election.
Pakistan’s earlier terms on the Council were in 2003-04, 1993-94, 1983-84, 1976-77, 1968-69 and 1952-53.
The Pakistan delegation, led by Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon, appeared to be conf ident of victory.
“We have worked very, very hard over the past months,” Ambassador Haroon said.
According to a press release, Haroon said Pakistan’s election to the Security Council is the acknowledgement by the international community of its services and its capabilities to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security which is the main function of the Security Council.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar thanked the international community for reposing trust in Pakistan. “Pakistan will play its constructive role in the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security,” a press release quoted the minister as saying.
Mian Jahangir, the press officer for Pakistan’s mission to the UN, said that the President of Pakistan and the Prime Minister had also congratulated Ambassador Haroon on Pakistan’s victory at the UN Security Council.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has congratulated the nation on this victory. Pakistan will assume its seat on the Security Council from January 1, 2012.
She also congratulated the Foreign Office and Pakistan’s Permanent Mission in New York for their hard work in projecting Pakistan’s constructive role in the world.
Pakistan wins temporary UN council seat – The Express Tribune