One more Russian diplomat who was supposed to attend a United Nations event has been denied a US visa, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said on Friday.
Georgy Mikhno, a deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for New Challenges and Threats, was to attend a UN meeting on counter-terrorism efforts organized at Russia’s initiative.
“His absence here is yet another instance when the host country fails to implement its visa commitments under the agreement on the headquarters of the United Nations,” Nebenzya commented. “Such actions do serious harm to the United States’ reputation, and to international counter-terrorism efforts.”
Earlier in February, Konstantin Vorontsov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s multilateral disarmament department who was to lead Russia’s delegation to the United Nations Disarmament Commission’s session, failed to obtain a US visa in due time and the commission’s session was postponed for ten days.
The United Nations General Assembly’s Committee on Relations with the Host Country will gather for an extraordinary meeting over this matter early next week.
Problems with obtaining US entry visas have been impeding United Nations events at its headquarters for quite a time. The Disarmament Commission failed to hold its organizational session in 2019 for this very reason.
Since the start of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly, as many as 18 Russian delegates have had to skip UN events because the US had failed to issue entry visas in due time.
In December 2019, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling on the US to stop the practice of visa issuance delays to diplomats from a number of nations, including Russia, Venezuela, and Iran.
Source: TASS
