Poland takes over the monthly rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday.

During its presidency, Poland aims to work towards security and peace in the world, Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said.

Poland is to organise meetings dedicated to the Middle East and Africa, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"The dominant issue on the agenda will be the development of events in Syria. The Polish diplomatic corps will endeavour to react efficiently to unexpected situations," the foreign ministry said.

It added that Poland would pay "special attention to developments in the Korean Peninsula and the Middle East."

During May, Poland is also to host a debate entitled "The role of the UN Security Council in preserving international law in the context of ensuring international peace and security," to be led by Polish President Andrzej Duda, and another on civilian protection, which will be chaired by Czaputowicz.

Poland joined the Security Council as a non-permanent member for a two-year stint in January. </s> Poland's president has asked the UN Security Council to deploy a UN peacekeeping force in eastern Ukraine throughout the zone of conflict with Russia-backed separatists and along the border with Russia.

"We are advocating the deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission," Andrzej Duda told a news conference in New York late on May 17 after delivering a similar plea before the UN Security Council, where Poland holds the rotating presidency for the month of May.

"First, those forces should be deployed along the internationally recognized border between Ukraine and Russia," he said.

"I also stressed in the strongest terms that if that happened, those forces should deploy across all territory which today is in the hands of separatists," he said.

Ukraine has supported the introduction of United Nations peacekeepers as long as they are placed along the border with Russia to monitor and ensure Russian troops and weapons do not come over the border to aid the separatists.

Russia made a much narrower proposal in September, saying it would support a limited UN peacekeeping mission to protect around 600 observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe who are on the ground in eastern Ukraine.

Russia drafted a UN resolution that would authorize lightly armed peacekeepers to protect the OSCE monitors along the demarcation line between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russia fighters.

But that was unacceptable to Ukraine and its allies in Europe and the United States. The Security Council never formally debated either sides' proposals.

As president of the council this month, Poland's UN representative may bring Warsaw's proposal up for debate. But it could face a veto from Russia, which has strongly opposed placing armed UN peacekeepers along its border with Ukraine.

More than 10,300 people have been killed in the conflict between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russia separatists since the insurgency broke out in April 2014 following Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

Clashes erupt regularly despite a 2015 peace agreement forged in Minsk that laid down a process for establishing peace in the region but has been little heeded by either side. </s> WARSAW (Reuters) - The United States is serious about the security of its ally Poland, Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Wednesday after meeting U.S. President Donald Trump in Warsaw.

"We see ourselves as loyal partners who cooperate on a number of issues, among others on security," Duda told a joint news conference with Trump in Warsaw's Royal Castle.

 "I have a feeling that the United States is serious about Poland's security."

 Poland hosts some 900 U.S. troops as part of a rotating NATO force in eastern Europe to counter potential threats from Russia.

 

 (Reporting by Marcin Goclowski and Justyna Pawlak; editing by Andrew Roche) </s> WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Former Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres has emerged as the clear favourite to become the next United Nations Secretary-General following the sixth secret ballot held Wednesday by the UN Security Council. It is expected to take a formal decision Thursday and forward Guterres' name to the 193-Member General Assembly for final confirmation.



Ambassador Vitaly Churkin of Russia, which holds the Security Council presidency for the month, informed the President of the Assembly, Peter Thomson, that in the sixth informal 'straw poll' for the position of Secretary-General, Guterres emerged as the clear favourite among the Council's 15 members.



Churkin said the Council's meeting Thursday to take a formal vote is expected to pass by acclamation. That decision would then be formally submitted to the General Assembly for its consideration.



In addition to Guterres, who served as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 2005 to 2015, 12 other candidates were in the running to succeed the current UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, who leaves office at the end of the year.



The selection of a new United Nations Secretary-General, traditionally decided behind closed-doors by a few powerful countries, has for the first time in history, involved public discussions with each candidate campaigning for the world's top diplomatic post.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
Poland takes over the rotating Presidency of the United Nations Security Council.