The UN Security Council yesterday nominated South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon as its choice to succeed Kofi Annan as UN secretary general, its president for the month announced.

The announcement by Japan's FROM PAGE 16

UN envoy Kenzo Oshima was however overshadowed by North Korea's first-ever nuclear weapons test, which Oshima called "a very serious matter" and "a threat to international peace and security in the region."

Shortly after it formally endorsed Ban by acclamation, the council went back into closed-door consultations to agree a response to North Korea's brazen defiance of a UN resolution adopted Friday and urging it not to go ahead with the test.

Ban, a 62-year-old career diplomat, was the only remaining candidate for the coveted, high-profile diplomatic job after six other contenders withdrew following the South Korean foreign minister's decisive victories in four informal straw polls in the council.

Under the UN charter, the 192-member General Assembly elects the secretary general upon the recommendation of the council.

Oshima said he asked the president of the General Assembly "for prompt steering of the appointment process."

The assembly is likely to schedule a vote later this month.

Ban would then take office next January after Annan, a Ghanaian, steps down after having completed two five-year terms.

"It's really quite an appropriate juxtaposition that today, 61 years after the temporary division of the Korean peninsula at the end of World War II, that we're electing the foreign minister of South Korea secretary general of this organisation and meeting as well to consider the testing by the North Koreans of a nuclear device," US

Ambassador to the UN John Bolton said.

"I can't think of a better way to show the difference of the progress of those two countries -- the great progress in the south and the great tragedy in the north," he added.

Meanwhile UN chief Kofi Annan welcomed the selection of his successor.

Annan "has the highest respect for Mr Ban" and "hopes that the General Assembly will be able to reach a decision on this important matter in the near future, so that the incoming secretary general designate will have time to prepare fully for his assumption of office on January 1," the secretary general's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement.

Ban surfaced as the favorite in four straw polls in the council, with most UN members agreeing that it is an Asian's turn to lead the world body in line with an unwritten rule of geographic rotation for the secretary general post.

The last Asian to hold the job was Burmese diplomat U Thant, who served 1961-1971.

The other contenders to replace Annan were Indian diplomat Shashi Tharoor, the UN undersecretary general for communications and public information; Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga; former Thai deputy prime minister Surakiart Sathirathai; Jordan's UN ambassador Prince Zeid al-Hussein; Sri Lankan diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala; and Afghanistan's former finance minister Ashraf Ghani.