Iran is lobbying for support from other Islamic states and its anti-American allies in the Non-Aligned Movement in a contest with Japan for a seat of UN General Assembly that is becoming vacant as the term of Indonesia in the council’s 10 non-permanent members, reserved for an Asian nation, is expiring in January. Mohamed Khaza’e, Tehran’s top envoy at the UN told state-run Iranian radio that Tokyo “does not play a significant role in international and political affairs” and should step aside. The Iranian diplomats are presenting Japan as merely a stooge of the USA. He noted that some 140 nations have either never sat on the Security Council, or have been a member just once – as Iran was under the Shah in 1955-56, more than two decades before the country’s Islamic revolution. Iran’s appeal to the Islamic world will be a powerful card. Many Muslim nations already feel under-represented on the Security Council, even before Indonesia, the world’s most populous Islamic state, ends its two-year stint.
IRAN AND JAPAN VIE FOR A SEAT OF UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Iran is lobbying for support from other Islamic states and its anti-American allies in the Non-Aligned Movement in a contest with Japan for a seat of UN General Assembly that is becoming vacant as the term of Indonesia in the council’s 10 non-permanent members,