UNITED NATIONS – America’s U.N. ambassador, John Bolton, yesterday publicly announced his opposition to Venezuela becoming a member of the U.N. Security Council, escalating Washington’s diplomatic campaign against inroads made by Hugo Chavez’s regime into international institutions.

Washington has already sent confidential demarches to capitals around the world stating its profound reservations about Caracas’s membership in the elite 15-member council, an American diplomat told The New York Sun yesterday. But until now it has not made its hostility public.

While it considers membership in the council “very important,” Mr. Bolton told reporters yesterday, Washington in the past has refrained from stating in public which countries it has supported for membership. Besides the five permanent members of the Security Council – America, China, Russia, Britain, and France – 10 countries are elected for a two-year stint as voting members of the council, and Venezuela has begun campaigning in earnest for one of the temporary seats that will open up next year.

“I don’t think there is any mistake that Venezuela would not contribute to the effective operation of the Security Council,” said Mr. Bolton, who serves as the rotating president of the council for the month of February. “I think we can see that from their actions in the past six months in the General Assembly, which have been unhelpful. And I don’t think it would be conducive to an effective and well-functioning Security Council.”

Last September, Mr. Chavez received a standing ovation while addressing the General Assembly, after defying a time limit imposed on speeches and contending he needed as much time as President Bush. Venezuela has opposed America in votes on U.N. reform and on almost all political issues taken up by the assembly.

It also infuriated diplomats beyond Turtle Bay, organizing anti-American opposition in world bodies, including a dissenting vote last month in the 35-member board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, on referring the Iranian issue to the Security Council.

Using his oil riches and allying himself with Iran and Syria, Mr. Chavez raised his international profile far beyond South America, where he has vied to become the heir of his mentor, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Most recently he has invited Hamas leaders to visit Caracas.

Of the 10 elected council members, five change each year, replaced by countries that represent the different world regions. In many cases a vote in the 192-member General Assembly for council membership is symbolic, as regional blocs settle on a single country for candidacy for the seat allotted them.

When Argentina leaves the council at the end of 2006, its seat is expected to be filled by another member of the Latin and Caribbean group. Two candidates, Venezuela and Guatemala, are competing for that position.

If neither of them withdraws their candidacy and the group fails to unite behind one, the 192-member assembly will have to make the decision, and that is where America hopes its influence might block Venezuela. A spokeswoman for the Venezuelan mission to the United Nations did not return calls yesterday.