AlQa'dah 24, 1432, Oct 22, 2011, SPA - Pakistan, Morocco, Togo and Guatemala were elected on Friday to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council for 2012 and 2013, and Islamabad's envoy said he looked forward to working with fellow council member India. The race for a fifth council seat, representing Eastern Europe, was adjourned until Monday after neither of the two candidates, Azerbaijan and Slovenia, was able to win a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly after nine votes, according to a report of Reuters. In the most competitive council elections for years, only Guatemala ran unopposed within its region. Pakistan scraped through in the first round of voting, defeating Kyrgyzstan for an Asian seat with the minimum required tally. Morocco scored an easy first-round victory, while the small West African state of Togo won out in the third round with a tally more than double Mauritania's. For Eastern Europe, Azerbaijan and Slovenia battled it out all day after a third candidate, Hungary, pulled out after trailing in the first ballot. The race swung both ways, but Azerbaijan led Slovenia by the end of the day with 113 votes to 77, still 14 votes short of clinching a win. Pakistani Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon welcomed his country's election to the United Nations' elite body and said he expected to work well with the ambassador of India, Hardeep Singh Puri, next year. "You have seen that the usual tendencies have not erupted between us and that is a good factor," Haroon said. "Perhaps both of us have been beneficial in starting dialogue between both the countries." India joined the council this year and will stay through 2012.
