Russia will be ready to host the United Nations (UN) headquarters if a decision is made to relocate it from New York, Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko has said, commenting on the U.S. visa denial to 10 members of the Russian delegation to the UN General Assembly.
In an interview with RIA Novosti news agency published Friday, Matviyenko said “the incident gives reason to raise the issue of moving the UN headquarters from the United States to another country.”
If such a decision is made, Russia would be able to provide the resettlement of the United Nations and guarantee the rights of all foreign participants, she said.
Matviyenko said by denying visas to members of the Russian delegation, the United States has crossed all the lines and grossly violated its commitments to the United Nations and all conceivable rules and norms.
She said it is time for the United Nations to clarify its agreement with the United States and insist that only the United Nations itself can determine the composition of delegations.
On the visa denial, the U.S. Embassy in Russia has said that it was forced to delay issuing visas because it had to cut its diplomatic staff in Russia by 60 percent.
Russia cut the U.S. staff in Russia in 2017 to equal the number of Russian diplomatic personnel in the United States in response to a number of Washington’s unfriendly moves, including imposing economic sanctions, expelling Russian diplomats and seizing Russian diplomatic properties in the United States. ■
