President's statement on the withdrawal of Slovenia’s candidacy for a seat on the UN Security Council

Ljubljana, 25.10.2011  |  statement

The President of the Republic of Slovenia, Dr Danilo Türk, expresses his appreciation and wishes to thank the Slovenian diplomatic service for their work on the candidacy of Slovenia for a non-permanent seat of the United Nations Security Council. The decision to present the candidacy was made by the Government of the Republic of Slovenia in 2000 and confirmed by all four subsequent governments.

Slovenia’s diplomatic tasks have been performed correctly and with high quality, for which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be acknowledged, especially in the last few years, when it was headed by Mr Samuel ®bogar. Special acknowledgements go to the head of the Permanent Mission at the UN in New York, Ambassador Sanja ©tiglic, and to her team, who have shown great knowledge, professionalism and diplomatic talent. Their efforts were a key factor in Slovenia’s success in the first round of voting, when it won more votes than its competitor from the EU, and for the lead in the next few votes. During the entire sixteen rounds of voting, Slovenia maintained stable support of a great number of UN Member States.

Slovenia failed to secure the required two thirds of the votes of UN Member States and, finally, honourably withdrew in the 16th round. Its action is an example of a wise and responsible conduct, generally appreciated in diplomacy. During the proceedings, Slovenia rightly drew attention to the problems of the negative campaign to which it had been exposed, while Slovenia itself never expressed a negative assessment of any of its competitors.