Azerbaijan elected member of the Council for Human Rights

In the course of the second voting round, Ukraine and Azerbaijan were elected members of the Council for Human Rights, the Day.Az reports.

A total of 109 UN member-states voted for election of Ukraine into the new body. The candidature of Azerbaijan was supported by 103 states.

In the third round, Rumania and Slovenia competed for the remaining place for the countries of Eastern Europe. Rumania won with a balance of 18 votes. It was supported by 98 states.

Earlier, The Russian Federation was elected into the UN Council for Human Rights. In the first round of voting, it gathered 137 votes out of 191 delegations of the member-states of the general Assembly, which allowed Russia to join the Council at this early stage, the "Vek" (Age) reports.

Thus, all the 47 members have been elected into the Council. As it was planned earlier, the group of East-European countries received 6 seats in the new body. They will be taken by Russia, Czechia and Poland, which were elected in the first round, and also Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Rumania. Poland and Czechia will remain in the Council for 1 year, Ukraine and Rumania - for 2 years, Russia and Azerbaijan - for 3 years.

These terms were defined in the course of the draw held after announcement of the outcomes. The procedure was used at the General Assembly for the first time.

From the Asian states, the following were elected into the Council: Bangladesh, Bahrain, Indonesia, India, Jordan, Malaysia, China, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Japan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. Among the applicants there were also Kyrgyzstan, Iran and Iraq. However, they have not gathered enough votes. Iran was supported by 58 states, Iraq - by 52, and Kyrgyzstan - by 88.

From the group of the African states, the following entered the Council: Algeria, Cameroon, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Southern Africa, Tunis and Zambia.

Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, Cuba, Peru, Nicaragua, Mexico and Uruguay will represent in the Council the countries of Latin America and Caribbean Basin, and Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Great Britain, Finland, France and Switzerland will take the places of West-European and other states.

The first sitting of the Council will take place on June 19, 2006.