4 January 2008(AXcess News)-- New York - After chairing his first Security Council meeting today, Libya's Ambassador said that being both a new member and president of the 15-member body at once is not an easy task, but is nonetheless very important for the North African nation, which was shunned by the international community for many years.

Libya was elected last year by the General Assembly to serve as a non-permanent member on the Council for a two-year term beginning on 1 January, along with Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia and Viet Nam. It also assumed the Council's presidency for January under a system by which the post rotates every month in alphabetic order by country name.

"It is quite a challenge, but we will do our best," Giadalla Ettalhi told reporters as he presented the Council’s program of work for this month.

Ambassador Ettalhi added that it is "very significant" for Libya, which was under UN sanctions for a decade, to be back on the Council. "It means that we are back to normal at least from the perspective of the others."

Turning to the Council's program, which was approved by the membership earlier today, he noted that it will be "an Arab-African month," referring to the majority of issues to be dealt with during January.

Among them will be the newly-launched UN-African Union (AU) hybrid force (UNAMID), set up to stem the violence in Sudan's Darfur region. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned of critical gaps that remain for the force, which formally took over from the existing AU operation on Monday and is set to become the UN's largest peacekeeping operation with 26,000 personnel at full deployment.

"The Council is very interested to hear from the Secretary-General about the deployment…and also the political process," Ettalhi said.

The Council will take up a related issue when it discusses the situation in Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR), where the UN has authorized a new mission (MINURCAT) to help protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian aid to thousands of people uprooted due to insecurity in the two countries and neighbouring Sudan. Other African matters to be discussed include Cote d'Ivoire, Somalia, and Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Turning to Kosovo, Ettalhi said the Council will be discussing situation in the UN-administered Serbian province on 16 January. The format of that meeting, which will be attended by the Serbian President, has yet to be decided. This follows a closed-door discussion last month in the Council on the province's future status.

The Council will also have its regular monthly meetings on the situation in the Middle East and Iraq, the Ambassador stated. " Lebanon as such is not on the table for the time being," he added when asked if the Council will be taking up the situation in that country which has still not elected a new President.

On Myanmar, he said he would consult with the Secretary-General's Special Adviser Ibrahim Gambari on whether he intends to brief the Council, should he return to the troubled South-East Asian nation in the coming weeks.

Source: AXcess News