After a voting on October 17, 2008, to choose five new non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to replace five countries whose membership expired by the end of 2008, Turkey and Austria (from Western Europe), Mexico (from Latin America) and Uganda (from Africa) were elected as non-permanent members of Security Council for a two-year period (2009-10).

Although Iran had been nominated for a non-permanent seat at the Council, it needed to secure two-thirds of votes at the General Assembly, which did not happen. Subsequently, Iran’s Asian rival, that is, Japan was given the seat for the said two years. This policy paper discusses reasons and consequences of Iran’s failure to become non-permanent member of this influential world body.