“At the initiative of the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the Government of Timor-Leste was asked to support Portugal’s candidacy for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council,” the Timorese foreign minister told Lusa on the sidelines of the signing ceremony of an agreement between the Government of Timor-Leste and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Dili.
“This letter from the Portuguese President was delivered directly by Portugal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel. I have already handed the letter to our President, José Ramos-Horta,” Bendito Freitas said.
The minister stressed that this represents Timor-Leste’s political position regarding the bid for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council, noting that Portugal formally requested Timor-Leste’s support.
“This is the statement, and I believe the President will present the official position of support for Portugal,” he added.
Bendito Freitas expressed confidence that Portugal’s candidacy will be successful, noting that it represents the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) and also has global reach.
“In Europe, it is also relevant, as Portugal is a European nation with strong influence at the United Nations and, at the multilateral level, can help and give a voice to the needs of more vulnerable communities,” he concluded.
Portugal is running for the Security Council – one of the UN’s most important bodies, responsible for maintaining international peace and security and whose decisions are binding – under the slogan “Prevention, Partnership, Protection”.
Portugal’s direct competitors are Germany and Austria, in a contest for the two non-permanent seats allocated to the Western European and Others Group.
The bid was formally submitted in January 2013, and elections for the mandate will take place during the 81st UN General Assembly in September, three months before the end of António Guterres’s second five-year term as UN Secretary-General.
Portugal has already served three times as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council: in 1979–1980, 1997–1998 and 2011–2012.
The UN Security Council is composed of 15 members – five permanent and ten non-permanent. Each member has one vote, with the five permanent members – China, the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Russia—also holding veto power.
