UNITED NATIONS, June 2 -- The UN General Assembly on Friday elected Cote d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Kuwait, Poland and Peru as non-permanent members of the UN Security Council to serve a two-year term starting Jan. 1, 2018.
The 193-member Assembly has been voting to elect five non-permanent members of the 15-nation council on Friday morning. A two-thirds majority of votes are needed for a country to be elected.
The final results are Cote d'Ivoire with 189 votes, Equatorial Guinea with 185 votes, Kuwait with 188 votes, Poland winning 190 votes while Peru garnering 186 votes.
The newly-elected members will replace the retiring members of Egypt, Japan, Senegal, Ukraine and Uruguay.
Earlier on Friday, the General Assembly also elected the Netherlands as a non-permanent member to the council for one year starting from Jan. 1, 2018 as a result of a tie between Italy and the Netherlands in last year's election.
Having gathered the same number of votes, the two countries agreed to share one Security Council seat for the non-permanent member, splitting up the two-year term as one country serving for one year.
The UN Security Council consists of five permanent members and 10 non-permanent members elected by the UN General Assembly. Five non-permanent members are elected every year to join the five permanent and veto-wielding members of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
According to the rules, the Security Council non-permanent seats should be distributed as five from African and Asian states; one from Eastern European states; two from Latin American states and two from Western European and other states.