Little more than a year after Croatia won a seat on the United Nations Security Council as a non-permanent member, the country will now head the council for a month starting December 1 2008.

The presidency of the council happens on a rotation principle following the alphabetical order of countries. Costa Rica headed the council before Croatia.

The December agenda of the council will be presented by Croatia's ambassador to the UN, Neven Jurica, on December 2 2008, news agencies said. As the presiding nation Croatia will have the right to propose to other Security Council members topics related to stability and peace in the international community.

As BalkanInsight.com reported in November 24 2008, diplomats in Croatia's foreign ministry told Croatia's Slobodna Dalmacija daily that "Croatia's experience of war in the early 1990s and subsequent efforts to deal with the consequences of war and peace-building make Croatia's officials qualified to help create solutions for various conflicts and crises".

Asked whether Croatian officials intend to raise the question of the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) sources in the ministry told the daily that it is "neither common, nor diplomatically wise to impose to the Security Council issues in accordance with its own national interests".

During this and last year, the UN Security Council has mostly discussed issues such as armed conflicts in Africa and in the Middle East, terrorism and sectarian violence in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran's nuclear programme. Kosovo dominated discussions dealing with the Eastern Europe.

Croatia's president Stjepan Mesic announced that Croatia will insist on discussing terrorism because it is a "global peril that demands a global response".

Soon after Croatia began its two year-term as an elected UN Security Council member in January 2008 it was also elected to preside over the body's Anti-Terrorism Committee.

Among the Committee's task is to monitor the implementation of the Security Council's resolution 1373, passed soon after the 9/11 attacks in the United States in 2001. This resolution asks signatories to criminalise the aiding and abetting of terrorist activities, withhold financial and other help to terrorists and share information on terrorist groups.