Russian President Vladimir Putin will once more not participate in the current year's high-ranking session of the United Nations General Assembly, because, according to him, "the US is not a convenient place, and it does not fulfill its obligations," it was announced on Tuesday.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov clarified that the Russian head of state will not go on a trip to New York to take part in this event.
He has not been there for years. The US is a country which does not very well fulfill its commitments as a host country of the UN headquarters, so it's probably not the best place to make a trip to now," he said, RT reported.
For the first time since 2015, the President of Russia spoke in person to a UN General Assembly session, after his pre-recorded speech at the event in 2020.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected to join the session of the UN General Assembly, which opens on Tuesday and runs until September 30. It will conclude with a High Level Week from September 23 to September 27, where participation from many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and French President Emmanuel Macron are expected to attend. It also expects the attendance and speech of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on September 25.
When, following the outbreak of conflict in Ukraine in February 2022, the US imposed sanctions on a host of high-ranking Russian officials, including President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov, it did so under the above-mentioned understanding. However, the 1947 Headquarters Agreement between the US and the UN binds Washington to grant diplomats and representatives of its member states immunity and unimpeded access to UN headquarters.
Meanwhile, Russian officials have blamed the US time and again for failing to live up to its pledges under the UN agreement, pointing to long delays in processing visas for Russian diplomatic staff. In April 2023, the US refused entry to journalists traveling with Lavrov to UN headquarters; officials in Washington termed them purveyors of "propaganda.".
Earlier, Lavrov denounced the move, stating that "the US has done something stupid" and showed "what its sworn assurances about protection of freedom of speech, access to information and so on are really worth.
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