UNITED NATIONS
Jordan has been elected non-permanent member to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Friday, taking 178 votes at the second voting to replace Saudi Arabia.
During the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the 2013 UNSC election was held on October 17 at UN Headquarters in New York, where Chad, Chile, Lithuania, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia were elected for five non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council for two-year mandates as of 1 January 2014.
Following the vote, Saudi Arabia announced that it would decline the seat, in protest of the Security Council, blaming it for "double standards" and being "ineffective" in terms of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, nuclear disarmament in the Middle East and putting an end to the Syrian civil war. Saudi Arabia was the first-ever country to reject the much coveted council seat.
Jordan won the seat in an uncontested voting.
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