S Korean foreign minister to run for UN chief

By Anna Fifield 
February 14 2006 
The Financial Times
Original Source: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7ceca358-9d44-11da-b1c6-0000779e2340.html


South Korea on Tuesday confirmed it was nominating Ban Ki-moon, its foreign minister, as a candidate to succeed Kofi Annan as secretary-general of the United Nations.
Mr Ban joins other declared candidates Surakiart Sathirathai, the Thai deputy prime minister, and Sri Lanka’s Jayantha Dhanapala in the running for the job, in a contest Asia believes it should win.
“I hope to contribute to developments in the UN and the international community,” Mr Ban, a former ambassador to the United Nations and Austria, told reporters on Tuesday. The 36-year veteran of South Korea’s foreign service also served as chef de cabinet when his compatriot Han Seung-soo was president of the UN general assembly in 2001-02.
Mr Ban said Seoul had notified the foreign ministers of all UN member countries - including North Korea - of his candidacy.
In an interview with the Financial Times on Monday, Mr Ban said the UN needed wide-ranging reforms. 
“During its 60 years of existence, the UN has had the primary responsibility for maintaining peace and stability in the world, as well as helping developing countries of the world to overcome their economic difficulties, and supporting human rights and democracy,” he said.
“However, globalisation is widening and deepening, and there are also new threats such as terrorism, widespread diseases like HIV/Aids, Sars and avian flu, and also narcotics and human trafficking – all of these are new threats that the international community should address with full co-ordination,” he said.
Mr Annan’s second five-year term ends on December 31 but a replacement is not expected to be named until the end of the year. 
The selection of the secretary-general is an opaque process in which there are no formal interviews and winners sometimes appear from the blue.
Asia believes its turn has arrived to provide the world’s top diplomat, according to the UN’s tradition of regional rotation, a contention supported by permanent members China and Russia. Asia has not held the job since Burma’s U Thant retired in1971.
However, eastern Europe has also staked its claim and other likely contenders include Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the Latvian president, and Aleksander Kwasniewski, the former Polish president.