As
Azeri
Minister Meets Ban Ki-moon on Nagorno Karabakh, Seeks UNSC Seat Over
Hungary and Slovenia,
Citing EU Rules
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
June 1, updated -- A three way race for a UN Security Council seat is
shaping up between Azerbaijan and two members of the European Union,
Hungary and Slovenia.
Azerbaijan's
argument
is that under the EU's common foreign policy provisions
either of these two would be aligned with Permanent members the UK
and France.
Azerbaijan, a
member of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference and recent joiner of the Non Aligned Movement, would in
this view bring a different perspective.
Azerbaijan
recently
detained people who protested in Baku, and is seeking to confine
protest organizer Bakhtiyar Hajiev for two years, ostensibly for
refusing the mandatory year of military service. (Azerbaijan remains
in a frozen or “protracted” conflict about Nagorno-Karabakh with
Armenia, which they say has dropped out of the race for the Security
Council seat.)
Inner
City Press
asked one of the spokespeople for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on
Wednesday if in his May 31 meeting with Azeri foreign minister Elmar
Mammadyarov Ban had raised these detention or other human rights
issues, and if Nagorno Karabakh was discussed, as has been reported.
While
the UN
usually puts out canned “read outs” of Ban's meetings with
visiting foreign ministers, this time it had not.
Ban & Azeri FM, still no UN read out shown
In her first
noon
briefing replacing lead spokesman Martin Nesirky, Vannina Maestracci
told Inner City Press she would try to get a read out of the meeting.
She delivered
answers on two questions that Nesirky had left
unanswered the previous, which may portend well. Watch this site.
Footnote:
Mammadyarov was leaving New York on Wednesday for Washington, to
meet with Hillary Clinton. Some have analogized the US and Russian
relation with Azerbaijan to those with Georgia, and even pointed to
the 2008 denouement of the frozen conflict of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, whose president Sergei Bagapsh recently died while seeking
medical treatment in Moscow.
Would the US provide more back up to
Azerbaijan than to Abkhazia, whose break away from Georgia was just
recognized by Vanuatu? Yes, some say, pointing to its natural gas
reserves, and US Ambassador Richard Morningstar who works the
issue....
Update
of
4:10 pm -- and some hours later, this belated readout:
From:
UN
Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Wed, Jun 1, 2011
at 3:59 PM
Subject: Response to your question on Azerbaijan.
To:
Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
In
their
meeting yesterday, the Secretary-General and the Foreign
Minister of Azerbaijan discussed the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh
peace process. The Secretary-General encouraged the parties to
support confidence-building measures proposed by the Organization for
Security and Coooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group Co-Chairs to
ease tensions on the ground.
* * *
At
UN,
As
Georgia Loses HRC Bid It Blames Russian Lobbying, 5 Votes
for Syria
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
May
20 -- Of the 17 countries
running Friday for 15 seats on
the UN Human Rights Council, only two were going to lose.
Inner
City
Press asked the Permanent Representative of Georgia Alexander Lomaia
what he felt his chances were, facing off against Romania and the
Czech Republic for two Eastern European group seats.
Ambassador
Lomaia
said,
without hesitation, that Russia had been asking countries not
to vote for Georgia, that at least two delegations had disclosed
this. In many UN fora, Georgia and Russia exchange rights of reply
regarding Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This is just one more battle.
After
the
election,
in which Georgia got 89 votes but still lost to Romania's
131 and the Czech Republic's 148, Inner City Press asked a Russian
diplomat about the result. He smiled and said, “Oops.”
Nicaraguan
representatives
said
they liked their chances, but they too took a
loss, despite receiving 98 votes. Austria pointed out that the two
votes cast for Australia were probably for it.
Syria tried
to play
down the five votes it received, after postponing its run to 2014, to
mere errors. If that was a write in campaign, it wasn't much.
Kuwait, Syria's replacement, waltzed in with 166 votes.
UN's Ban & Kuwait minister, human rights not shown
The Permanent
Representative of the Philippines, another winner with a clear or
unopposed slate, acknowledged to Inner City Press that there are
human rights issues in his country, such as unsolved killings of
journalists. But, he said, the trend line is up.
Later
on
Friday in
the same General Assembly Hall, military bands of China and the US
played together. Only at the UN.
, 
