UNITED NATIONS, September 19. /TASS/. Russia won’t give its right of veto at the UN Security Council to protect the core interests of the country and its allies, Moscow’s UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya told TASS.
"As for the use of the veto, there are many questions. The US permanent representative to the UN says that the US will refrain from using it, with the exception of ‘rare, extraordinary’ situations," the diplomat said in an interview ahead of the UN General Assembly’s high-level week, which starts on September 20. "This is nothing fundamentally new. Neither we nor the other permanent members of the council are interested in using the veto in other than extraordinary cases, and each such decision is of an extraordinary nature."
Nebenzya stressed that the right of veto is a great responsibility, at the same time it’s a tool and a guarantee preventing unbalanced decisions.
"When it comes to protecting the fundamental interests of our country and our allies, we are not going to abandon the use of the veto," the diplomat said. "The US has always done the same."
"The only difference now is that the dominance of the West on the UN Security Council enables the Americans to vote against without formally using the right of veto, because a decision requires at least nine votes of the Security Council members in the absence of negative votes of permanent members," Nebenzya said. "If this number isn’t reached, the veto is not recorded".