Cabinet would support Foreign Affairs Minister as UN Secretary-General

The list of candidates for the post of the UN Secretary-General should be compiled in March, but Slovakia hasn't put forward any particular name as yet. According to Erik Tomas, head of Government Office press department, if Foreign and European Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajčák accepts the candidacy, he will become the only Government nominee for this post and he certainly has all of its support. Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Peter Stano said that Lajčák will announce his intentions at an appropriate time. "He's closely watching the situation around the election of a new Secretary-General", explained Stano. Jan Kubiš, former (2006-08) foreign affairs minister and current UN Special Representative in Iraq is not keeping his interest to run for the post a secret. Current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's term will come to an end by the end of this year. The UN Secretary-General is recommended by the Security Council and subsequently appointed by the General Assembly for five years. In accordance with unwritten rules the Secretary-General never comes from one of the permanent members of the UNSC - France, Great Britain, China, Russia and the USA. 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 get occupied by a representative from the Eastern European Group. Official candidates from this group are so far: former president Danilo Türk for Slovenia, former chairman of the General Assembly Srgjan Kerim for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and current UNESCO chair Irina Bokova for Bulgaria.