MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

U.N. No compromise found

Latin American nations were yesterday unable to break the deadlock for the region's seat on the UN Security Council with Venezuela refusing to pull out of the race against US-backed Guatemala.

After 22 ballots on Monday and Tuesday, Venezuela lagged some 30 votes behind Guatemala 21 times. Neither nation reached the required two-thirds vote in the 192-member UN General Assembly for a two-year seat on the Security Council.

Voting will resume today and probably tomorrow unless General Assembly President Haya Rashed Al Khalifa of Bahrain cuts off the repetitive balloting, which diplomats said she was unlikely to do.

Armed with petrodollars, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has tried to form an alliance in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to challenge Washington's interests.

Failure to get into the UN Security Council would represent a setback for his ambitions for a bigger international profile.

"We don't enjoy paralyzing the work of the General Assembly. We don't enjoy divisions in the Latin American group," Guatemalan Foreign Minister Gert Rosenthal said after a meeting of 32 Latin American and Caribbean nations. But Rosenthal said since there was no agreement on a compromise or consensus candidate, "why not pick the country that had the most votes in the General Assembly?"

Compromise candidates mentioned are Uruguay or Paraguay in South America. In Central America, the candidates would be Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, which are next in the lineup for council seats from the region.

Several diplomats said Venezuela would have had more votes if Chavez had not called US President George W. Bush "the "devil" in his September General Assembly speech. But they also said heavy lobbying by the United States had cost Guatemala votes.

Chavez gave no sign of withdrawing. "Twenty-two consecutive blasts of imperialism resisted by Venezuela," he said late on Tuesday. "Whatever the final result of this battle, the victory is ours ? a moral victory for Venezuela."

Venezuela's UN ambassador, Francisco Arias Cárdenas, said a requirement for his country to pull out of the race would be for the "United States to stop arm-twisting in the Assembly, to have (US Ambassador John) Bolton stay seated in his chair, without exercising pressure," he said.