Can they make the move? In a letter addressed to the Secretary General of the UN, Russia expressed concern that it had not yet received any visa from the United States for the visit of its delegation – led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs – to the UN General Assembly, from September 20, according to the text seen this Friday by AFP.
“As of September 1, none of the 56 Russian representatives (…) have received entry visas for the United States” in the run-up to the General Assembly’s high-level week of September 20-26 in New York, writes the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia. “The same situation exists for the journalists and the crew members of our minister’s flight”.
“It is all the more worrying that in recent months the US authorities have repeatedly refused to grant visas to a number of Russian delegates to attend official UN events,” he said. it, calling on the United States to respect “its legal obligations” and to “promptly grant” the requested visas.
Guterres is following the case closely
According to a 1947 agreement between the United States and the UN, the United States must not prevent the transit to the United Nations headquarters of representatives of member states. In February, just after Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States announced sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, including a ban on entry into its territory.
“The United States takes seriously its obligations as a host country of the UN,” a spokesperson for the US State Department told AFP, noting that the visa granting process is confidential, it was not possible to comment on individual cases.
Given the large number of applications to be processed each year, “to ensure timely processing, we constantly remind the Russian mission to the UN, and other missions, that the United States must receive applications as soon as possible. soon as possible,” he added. “This is particularly important because of Russia’s unjustified actions against our embassy in Russia”, which has limited staff and “our capacities to process visa applications”, he insisted.
A spokeswoman for the UN secretary general told AFP that Antonio Guterres was “in close contact” with the United States regarding the rules of the 1947 agreement. with the mission on specific cases brought to our attention,” she added. “That’s what we do in this case.”
