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UNITED NATIONS, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The UN General Assembly on Thursday elected Italy to a two-year term on the UN Security Council joining next year Bolivia, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan and Sweden, but with the understanding Rome will relinquish its seat at the end of 2017 and turn it over to Netherlands to serve the remaining one-year period.
Following an Italy-Netherlands tie vote on Tuesday, the 193-member General Assembly voted during a single secret ballot 179-4 for Italy over the Netherlands. One vote was cast for San Marino and there were six abstentions. Two ballots were ruled invalid.
A more-than two-thirds majority of 123 ballots of those voting was required for election.
The balloting concluded election of five non-permanent members to serve two-year terms beginning Jan. 1, 2017 on the 15-member Security Council that began Tuesday. At that time, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan and Sweden were easily elected but Italy and Netherlands ended in a 95-95 tie after five rounds of voting.
A suspension in voting was called for by Italy and Netherlands and when the session resumed, the two nations said they had agreed to split the two year term for one seat -- the second of two allotted to the Western Europe and Others Group (WEOG) -- pending approval of WEOG.
Representatives of the two countries said the split-term agreement was agreed on as sign of unity in Europe, which they professed only days after the United Kingdom's referendum decision to leave the European Union.
Thursday, citing WEOG's approval of the Italy-Netherlands term-split accord, President Mogens Lykketoft resumed voting which concluded after a single round.
The countries elected Tuesday and Thursday will replace Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain and Venezuela who are ending their two-year terms Dec. 31. The newly elected will join, in addition to the five permanent members of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, the nonpermanent members of Egypt, Japan, Senegal Ukraine and Uruguay.
