MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Dominican UN candidacy has US and Venezuela's blessings

Dominican Republic, Paraguay and Uruguay are potential alternative candidates to end the fierce but seemingly endless dispute between Guatemala and Venezuela for the region's non permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council.

Guatemala and Venezuela have been unable since October 16 and after 41 voting rounds in the UN General Assembly, to garner the necessary support of two thirds.

The current dispute is over Argentina's seat which ends December 2006.

However Guyana's Foreign Affairs Secretary Rudy Insanally said Saturday that Latinamerican diplomats have advanced events and are now considering a list of candidates for the UN tow year mandate non permanent seat currently occupied by Peru which must be renewed in January 2008.

"We're now presenting the names of next year's list such as Dominican Republic, Paraguay and Uruguay", said Insanally.

Dominican Republic seems to have a certain edge since it has good relations with Venezuela and with United States, and could be the ideal candidate to solve the stalled voting between Guatemala and Venezuela.

The Dominican Republic is very advanced in negotiations for a free trade agreement with United States and also has close links with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez who has the country listed among those receiving oil at preferential prices.

Dominican president Leonel Fernandez revealed that Venezuelan Foreign Affairs minister Nicolas Maduro called him Thursday to suggest he consider the possibility of his country's candidacy for the Security Council. Fernandez who happened to be in Washington for several conferences had met that same day with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who told him United States had no objections to the idea.

"The least I can say at this stage is that there are no objections from the US to a Dominican Republic candidacy", underlined President Fernandez.

The list of possible candidates also includes Bolivia, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile.