E. Timor foreign minister says 'tempted' by top U.N. top

May 6, 2006
Yahoo! News Asia
Original Source: http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060506/kyodo/d8he34c80.html

(Kyodo) _ East Timor Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta said Friday he was tempted by the U.N. secretary general job, amid recent speculation about his possible candidacy.
 
I'm not ruling out any possibility, but sincerely I'm not yet a candidate, Ramos Horta, a 1996 Nobel Prize joint prize winner for his work in the East Timorese resistance against Indonesian occupation, told reporters at U.N. headquarters. 

You have to really reflect profoundly, whether you will really make a difference, or whether you want the job because it's well paid and prestigious, in spite of all the pressures, he said. 

And I view it as a mission and therefore I have to think thoroughly whether there is not someone much better than me, some Asian, who can do the job. 

It is now Asia's turn to put forward candidates for secretary general, since there is an informal U.N. tradition of rotating the position by region. 

Current U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is from Ghana, was reappointed in 2001 when Asia could not decide on a candidate. 

Annan will step down Dec. 31, and U.N. diplomats have expressed hopes for the Security Council to select his successor by September or October this year. 

The selection of secretary general candidates is greatly influenced by the U.N. Security Council, and the council must unanimously agree upon the selection before submitting the name to the General Assembly for final approval. 

Thai Deputy Prime Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, Sri Lankan former U.N. 

Undersecretary General for disarmament Jayantha Dhanapala and most recently South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki Moon are the three Asians who have formally declared their candidacies. 

Since the last and only Asian secretary general was U Thant of then Burma, who served from 1961 to 1971, many Asian countries and other member states strongly support an Asian to succeed Annan. 

Some countries, including the United States, have said selection should be based on the best-qualified candidates rather than regional rotation.