In this Jan. 23, 2018, photo, Kim Jong Yang, the senior vice president of Interpol executive committee, speaks during a press conference in Changwon, South Korea. On Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2028, Interpol... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this Jan. 23, 2018, photo, Kim Jong Yang, the senior vice president of Interpol executive committee, speaks during a press conference in Changwon, South Korea. On Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2028, Interpol elected Kim Jong Yang as its president in a blow to Russian efforts at naming one of their own. (Kang... (Associated Press) 
 
 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — South Korea's Kim Jong Yang was elected as Interpol's president on Wednesday, edging out a longtime veteran of Russia's security services who was strongly opposed by the U.S., Britain and other European nations. 
 
 Kim's surprise election was seen as a victory for the White House and its European partners, who had lobbied up until the final hours before the vote against Alexander Prokopchuk's attempts to be named the next president of the policing organization. 
 
 The U.S. and others expressed concern that if Russia's candidate had been elected, that would have led to further Kremlin abuses of Interpol's red notice system to go after political opponents and fugitive dissidents. 
 
 Russia accused its critics of running a "campaign to discredit" its candidate, calling Prokopchuk a respected professional. 
 
 Groups campaigning to clean up Interpol celebrated the win, as did South Korea. South Korea's police and Foreign Ministry issued a joint statement saying Kim's election is a "national triumph" that could elevate South Korea's international standing. 
 
 Kim's win means he secured at least two-thirds of votes cast at Interpol's general assembly in Dubai on Wednesday. He will serve until 2020, completing the four-year mandate of his predecessor, Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China as part of a wide anti-corruption sweep there. 
 
 Kim, a police official in South Korea, was serving as interim president after Meng's departure from the post and was senior vice president at Interpol. 
 
 Russia's Interior Ministry said after the vote that Prokopchuk, who is one of three vice presidents at Interpol, will remain in that position. Spokeswoman Irina Volk told the Interfax news agency that Prokopchuk will "focus on advancing the stature of Interpol in the international police community and making its work more effective." 
 
 Most of Interpol's 194 member-countries attended the organization's annual assembly this year, which was held in an opulent Dubai hotel along the Persian Gulf coast. 
 
 Interpol was facing a pivotal moment in its history as delegates decided whether to hand its presidency to Prokopchuk or Kim, who were the only two candidates vying for the post. 
 
 Based in the French city of Lyon, the 95-year-old policing body is best known for issuing "red notices" that identify suspects pursued by other countries, effectively putting them on the world's "most-wanted" list. 
 
 Critics say countries like Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran and China have used the system to try to round up political opponents, journalists or activists, even though its rules prohibit the use of police notices for political reasons. 
 
 The agency faced criticism two years ago when Interpol's member-states approved Meng as president for a four-year term. Amnesty International has criticized "China's longstanding practice of trying to use Interpol to arrest dissidents and refugees abroad." 
 
 In 2016, Interpol introduced new measures aimed at strengthening the legal framework around the red notice system. As part of the changes, an international team of lawyers and experts first check a notice's compliance with Interpol rules and regulations before it goes out. Interpol also says it enhanced the work of an appeals body for those targeted with red notices. 
 
 Still, member countries can issue requests, known as diffusions, directly to other countries using Interpol's communication system, without going through the centralized Interpol vetting that's in place for red notices. Watchdog groups are urging Interpol to reform the diffusion system too. 
 
 Bill Browder, who runs an investment fund that had once operated in Moscow, says Russia used the diffusion system against him, which led to his brief arrest in Spain earlier this year. 
 
 Browder and another prominent Kremlin critic, oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, warned Tuesday that electing Prokopchuk— who has ties to President Vladimir Putin— would have undermined the international law enforcement agency and politicized police cooperation across borders. Prokopchuk was in charge of facilitating Interpol warrants on behalf of Russia. 
 
 Browder and Khodorkovsky — who are reviled by the Kremlin — celebrated the result of the Interpol vote. Browder told The Associated Press on Wednesday that "Common sense has prevailed in a dark world. This is a real humiliation for Putin, who thought he'd get away with it." 
 
 A lawyer who wrote a book on Interpol, Christopher David, hailed Kim's election as "a solid, uncontroversial choice." He said in a statement that if Interpol is to be a credible crime-fighting resource, Kim must increase transparency "to demonstrate and maintain its political neutrality." 
 
 A day before the Interpol vote, the White House had come out publicly against the election of Prokopchuk, with National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis saying "the Russian government abuses Interpol's processes to harass its political opponents." U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was encouraging all nations and organizations that are part of Interpol to choose Kim. 
 
 Russia, however, secured a win for its ally Serbia on Tuesday when Kosovo's bid to join Interpol failed to garner enough votes at the general assembly in Dubai. The move would have boosted Kosovo's efforts at recognition of its statehood. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Charlton reported from Paris. Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow and Danica Kirka in London contributed. ||||| Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Kim Jong-yang had been acting Interpol chief since the last president's disappearance in September 
 
 Interpol has elected South Korean Kim Jong-yang as its president, rejecting the controversial Russian frontrunner. 
 
 Mr Kim was chosen by Interpol's 194 member states at a meeting of its annual congress in Dubai. 
 
 He beat Russia's Alexander Prokopchuk, who has been accused of using Interpol's arrest warrant system to target critics of the Kremlin. 
 
 Russia blamed the outcome of the voting on "unprecedented pressure and interference". 
 
 The election follows the disappearance of Interpol's former president Meng Hongwei, who vanished on a trip to China in September. Beijing has since confirmed he has been detained and is being investigated for allegedly taking bribes. 
 
 Who is Kim Jong-yang? 
 
 Mr Kim, 57, beat Mr Prokopchuk, also 57, by 101 votes to 61 at Interpol's General Assembly meeting on Wednesday, media reports say. 
 
 Interpol confirmed the South Korean's victory, without revealing the breakdown of the results. 
 
 Mr Kim is a former South Korean police officer who once served as head of police in Gyeonggi, the country's most populous province. 
 
 He was already senior vice-president of Interpol and had been serving as acting president since Mr Meng's disappearance. He will serve out the remaining two years of Mr Meng's term. 
 
 Although his role as president is largely ceremonial - the day-to-day running of Interpol is led by Secretary-General Jürgen Stock - it does wield influence. 
 
 Upon his election, Mr Kim said: "Our world is now facing unprecedented changes which present huge challenges to public security and safety. 
 
 "To overcome them, we need a clear vision: we need to build a bridge to the future." 
 
 Who is Alexander Prokopchuk? 
 
 Mr Prokopchuk is a Russian general who worked for many years with Russia's interior ministry. 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Russian Alexander Prokopchuk was widely considered the frontrunner for the post 
 
 While he was Interpol's Moscow bureau chief, he was accused of abusing the so-called red notice system - international arrest warrants - to target those who were critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 
 
 No such accusations have been levelled at him while he has been one of Interpol's four vice-presidents. 
 
 Moscow said Mr Prokopchuk would remain an Interpol vice-president representing Europe and "focus on strengthening the position of Interpol in the international police community and increasing the efficiency of the organisation's work". 
 
 Who opposed Prokopchuk's candidacy and why? 
 
 There had been growing fears among Russian human rights groups and officials from other countries that Moscow would use his position as president to target its political opponents. 
 
 A bipartisan group of US senators said electing Mr Prokopchuk would be "akin to putting a fox in charge of the henhouse", while a prominent Kremlin critic said it would be like "putting the mafia in charge". 
 
 This prompted a furious response from Moscow, who said such comments amounted to a "certain kind of interference in the electoral process of an international organisation". 
 
 Both the UK foreign office and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threw their weight behind Kim Jong-yang's candidacy. Lithuania and Ukraine had threatened to withdraw from Interpol if Mr Prokopchuk was elected. 
 
 Two British-based prominent critics of the Kremlin - financier Bill Browder and ex-oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky - say they plan to launch a legal bid to have Russia suspended by Interpol. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Bill Browder: Russian Interpol candidate 'most inappropriate' 
 
 Bill Browder, who was held in Spain earlier this year after a Russian Interpol request, has been a thorn in the Kremlin's side, being widely credited with the creation of the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 range of sanctions from the United States on top Russian officials accused of corruption. 
 
 He welcomed the rejection of Mr Prokopchuk saying: "Reason prevails in this dark world." 
 
 "The clear next step is to suspend Russia from Interpol for its consistent and serial abuse of the Red Notice and diffusion system for political purposes," he added. 
 
 How many Red Notices are issued? 
 
 By BBC Reality Check team 
 
 Most of them are not made public, so tracking is difficult. It's also highly subjective as to whether notices have been issued for only political reasons. 
 
 But looking at Interpol's published database on Red Notices, we can draw some interesting insights. 
 
 First, of the cases publicly declared by individual countries, Interpol's data shows that 160 individuals are wanted by Russia. This is also the number wanted by the US. 
 
 One person is wanted by the UK and 44 by China. 
 
 This is not a complete picture as countries can restrict details of the notice to law enforcement. 
 
 We do, however, know the total number of notices issued by all countries, and this shows a significant rise over the past decade. 
 
 In 2006, Interpol issued fewer than 3,000, according to statistics gathered by Fair Trial (from collated Interpol data), an organisation that campaigns against abuses of Interpol. 
 
 The number has steadily increased and in 2017, when Interpol published about 13,000 Red Notices. 
 
 There were a total of about 85,000 notices in circulation at the end of 2016. 
 
 Countries can also request other colour-coded notices to help locate suspects or warn member countries of criminal activity. 
 
 How did Russian media react? 
 
 By BBC Monitoring 
 
 Image caption Kremlin-controlled media said the vote was further evidence of "a veritable information war" against Mr Prokopchuk 
 
 The Kremlin-controlled media are casting Mr Prokopchuk's defeat as the victory of a "Russophobic lobby". 
 
 A newsreader on national state TV channel Rossiya 1 accused the West of mounting a "veritable information war" against the Russian candidate. 
 
 On the country's tightly-controlled daytime political talk shows, the mood was that the vote was yet another example of the wall of hostility apparently encircling Russia. 
 
 Presenters stressed that Moscow was in fact not really that interested in the Interpol job, and that this was a fight started out of nothing by its enemies, especially US politicians and the British media.
– South Korea's Kim Jong Yang was elected Interpol's president on Wednesday, reports the AP, edging out a longtime veteran of Russia's security services who was strongly opposed by the US, UK, and other European nations. Kim's surprise election was seen as a victory for the White House and its European partners, who had lobbied until the final hours against Alexander Prokopchuk; the BBC notes that a bipartisan group of US senators said electing Prokopchuk would be "akin to putting a fox in charge of the henhouse." Russia accused critics of running a "campaign to discredit" Prokopchuk. Critics say countries like Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and China use Interpol's red notice system to round up political opponents, journalists, or activists, even though its rules prohibit that. The US and others expressed concern that the Russian's election would have led to further Kremlin abuses of the system. Groups working to clean up Interpol celebrated, as did South Korea—which called Kim's election a "national triumph." Financier and Kremlin critic Bill Browder, who says Russia used the diffusion system against him, celebrated the vote, saying, "This is a real humiliation for Putin, who thought he'd get away with it." Kim will serve until 2020, completing the four-year term of his predecessor, Meng Hongwei, who was detained in China as part of a wide anti-corruption sweep there. Kim, a police official in South Korea, was serving as interim president after Meng's departure. Russia's Interior Ministry said after the vote that Prokopchuk, who is one of three vice presidents at Interpol, will remain in that position.