BUENOS AIRES, December 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's foreign minister on Wednesday criticized a U.S. proposal to discuss Belarus' human rights record at a UN Security Council session, saying the issue has nothing to do with the challenges to global security and peace that the body was set up to address.

"We all need to make efforts to ensure that the UN Security Council focuses on issues crucial to world peace and international security and is not distracted by issues that have nothing to do with its mandate," Sergei Lavrov said after a meeting with his Argentine counterpart in the capital, Buenos Aires.

He said the discussion of human rights issues was a prerogative of other UN bodies after the U.S. suggested the Security Council should consider the hunger strike of jailed Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Kozulin. He challenged President Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed by Washington "Europe's last dictator," in a March election.