11 Oct 2019 21:35

Moscow to officially propose moving UNGA First Committee sessions from New York - Russian delegation deputy head

NEW YORK, UN. Oct 11 (Interfax) - Russia is planning to submit a proposal on Friday on moving UN General Assembly First Committee sessions to Geneva or Vienna from New York in connection with the United States' non-issuance of visas to several delegations, deputy head of the Russian delegation and deputy Russian representative in Geneva Andrey Belousov said.

"Today, we intend to present one of the documents which we are planning to submit for consideration to the [UNGA] First Committee. This is a procedural decision on moving the committee's work from the New York ground to an alternative ground within the UN system. That is, either to Vienna or to Geneva," Belousov told Russian reporters at the United Nations.

Russia "is going to propose this as the First Committee's official decision," he said.

The United Nations General Assembly First Committee deals with disarmament and related international security issues.

Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department Vladimir Yermakov said earlier on Friday that Russia is expecting the UN Secretariat to facilitate a swift solution to the situation of non-issuance of visas which affected several delegations that planned to attend events as part of the 74th UN General Assembly.

"In addition to derailing international agreements, they [the Americans] started physically blocking our common work, having for some reason decided that they may determine which of us is good enough to arrive at our New York headquarters and who isn't. Such discrimination is absolutely unacceptable. We will make further efforts for the UN Secretariat to swiftly tackle this problem," Yermakov said, speaking during a general debate in the First Committee session.

Yermakov proposed for delegations to continue discussions "on a positive note," hoping that "the country hosting the UN Headquarters will not be cowardly and unlawfully shut off access to our common headquarters for us."