Ireland took up its duties as one of five new members on the new UN Security Council members today.
Along with other newcomers Norway, Singapore, Colombia and Mauritius, Ireland sat with the 15-member council to discuss peacekeeping missions in Africa, Kosovo and East Timor.
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Singapore immediately became the rotating president of the council for month of January.
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The council has 10 non-permanent members, five of whom rotate each year, and five veto-bearing permanent members - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.
The five new members join the other five non-permanent members still on the council for another year: Bangladesh, Jamaica, Mali, Tunisia and Ukraine.
Leaving the council are Canada, Netherlands, Argentina, Malaysia and Namibia, whose two-year terms expired on Sunday.
The council, responsible for peace and security, is the only UN body that can take mandatory political decisions that all 189 UN member nations must follow. These steps could include peacekeeping activities or imposing sanctions.
To get acquainted with council procedures, all five of the new members were allow to sit in on private meetings during December.
On Tuesday, Singapore's UN ambassador, Mr Kishore Mahbubani, was holding individual private meetings with the 14 other ambassadors to devise the council's agenda for January.
The UN General Assembly for the past seven years has been discussing enlarging the council, which is rapidly losing legitimacy as a representative body.
Most UN members say it is weighted toward Western countries, with its five permanent members having attained their positions in 1945 as victors in the World War II. But no agreement is in sight.
Reuters
