Wellington  - New Zealand has withdrawn its bid for election to the  Council next month to try to ensure that the United States wins a seat, Foreign Minister Murray McCully announced Wednesday."We believe that US membership of the council will strengthen it and make it more effective," McCully said. "By any objective measure, membership of the council by the US is more likely to create positive changes more quickly than we could have hoped to achieve them."New Zealand was bidding, along with Norway and Belgium, for three seats allocated to West European and other states on the 47-member council. They would fill vacancies when Germany, Canada and Switzerland finish their three-year terms in May.

A vote became inevitable when US President Barack Obama changed the policy of his predecessor, George W Bush, whose administration charged that the council had lost its credibility through repeated attacks on Israel and failure to confront other international abusers of human rights, including Cuba, Myanmar and North Korea.

McCully said that New Zealand had a strong record in international human rights and had widespread support for its candidacy from states in all the regional groups in the UN.

"New Zealand's decision to withdraw will enable our many supporters to vote in substantial numbers for a US candidature in May," he said.

"This decision was not taken lightly, but we see New Zealand's standing aside as being in the best interests of the advancement of international human rights at this time."

McCully said the council has been widely criticized, and New Zealand had intended to provide a force for change and improvement.

Standing down in favour of the US was in the interests of all who want to see the council "respond robustly and effectively to human- rights violations wherever they occur," he said. dpa