Ban said he expressed his intention in a letter to the governments of the 192 UN member nations and would meet with their envoys within the next two days.
The Security Council would first vote to recommend his re-election and the General Assembly would then vote on whether to give him a second term.
Ban is almost assured of re-election because Britain, China, France, Russia and the US, the five permanent members of the Security Council, have signaled their support and no opposition candidate has emerged. The eighth UN secretary general, Ban would be the fifth to win election to a second term.
However, when asked about his unmet first-term goals of ending the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan and completing an international agreement to combat climate change, Ban said he was “sorry to tell you that all these major challenges are in process that we will try to accelerate.”
Moreover, human rights advocates who have criticized Ban for failing to admonish world powers such as China for alleged abuses have praised his statements about attacks on anti-government protesters in the Middle East and North Africa.
(아주경제 앤드류 이 기자)
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com