UNITED NATIONS, August 1. /TASS/. The United Nations in its 70th year has retained the spirit of cooperation that was its distinguishing feature the moment it was founded in 1945, Russia’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, told TASS in an exclusive interview on Friday.
He described the UN as the backbone of international relations.
"The UN member-states still display the spirit of that cooperation," Churkin said. "And despite all of the special features of the current situation I believe that it is still present within the format of the quintet of the five permanent UN member-states."
"These days meetings by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are daily practice," he stated. "We hold meetings. We generate resolutions. We have some meetings with the UN Secretary-General. This is one of the functioning mechanisms of the Security Council and of the organization as such. We have managed to preserve that spirit and to enhance it."
"As far as my personal perception is concerned, I felt great pleasure when the resolution regarding the exploration of outer space was adopted," Churkin said. "The very adoption of that resolution was a sample of international cooperation. Countries were reviewing their own achievements, but all of them presented these as a contribution to humanity’s common cause, in which Yuri Gagarin’s space flight was a landmark event."
"It was the most pleasant resolution of all the UN General Assembly adopted in recent years," Churkin said.