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Slovakia to have two candidates in run for top UN position

Xinhua, January 15, 2016 Adjust font size:

Slovakia will likely have two candidates in run for United Nations Secretary General, according to the Slovak government's press department.

"If Foreign and European Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajcak accepts the candidacy, he will become the only government nominee for this post, and he certainly has all of its support," confirmed Erik Tomas, head of the Slovak Government Office press department, on Friday.

Slovak foreign affairs ministry spokesperson Peter Stano said Lajcak would announce his intentions at an appropriate time.

"He's closely watching the situation around the election of a new secretary-general," explained Stano.

Another Slovak diplomat, Jan Kubis, former foreign affairs minister and current UN Special Representative in Iraq, isn't keeping his interest in running for the position a secret.

Incumbent UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's term will come to an end at the end of this year.

Candidates for the UN secretary-general position are recommended by the Security Council and subsequently appointed by the General Assembly for a five-year term. In accordance with unwritten rules, the secretary-general never comes from one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council -- France, United Kingdom, China, Russia, and the United States. There's also a tradition to alternate between continents, as the past four secretary-generals were from Peru (Javier Perez de Cuellar), Egypt (Boutros Boutros-Ghali), Ghana (Kofi Annan) and South Korea (Ban Ki-moon) respectively. Observers assume that this time the spot could be occupied by a representative from Eastern Europe. Endit