Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has met representatives from 80 countries on April 5 in New York in a bid to gain support for Turkey's candidacy to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2015, Hurriyet Daily News reported.
"Turkey is going into an international campaign after leaving a national election campaign behind," Davutoglu said at a press conference at UN headquarters, referring to the March 30 local elections.
Davutoglu said Turkey "had the support toward winning" membership as a result of its performance on the Security Council in 2009-10. "A country normally waits one or two decades to re-run for the membership," he said. "Turkey is an exception in this sense."
The minister, after meeting 54 representatives of African Union countries, said most of those nations had promised to support Turkey's bid for its fifth term on the council.
The Security Council elects 10 non-permanent members to two-year terms, during which they serve alongside the five permanent members. Turkey, which has been a member of the UN for nearly 70 years, has been elected four times.