MOSCOW, May 17. /TASS/. Moscow demands that the United Nations (UN) Secretariat launch an arbitration procedure over Washington's failure to issue visas to Russian diplomats for UN events, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in an interview with TASS.

"By the way, the leadership of the UN Secretariat is doing nothing to fulfill our demand to launch an appropriate arbitration procedure with the UN headquarters host country. <...> We’ll continue to speak about the intolerance of the current situation and seek practical and political alternatives to this unacceptable situation, deliberately created by the American side," the diplomat pointed out.

Ryabkov added that the issue of finding alternatives for relevant events has been discussed, including on official platforms. "The topic of an alternative site for the UN headquarters was discussed at one time. But, unfortunately, not everyone in the international community shares our logic," he continued. - But I don’t foresee any general improvement of the situation with the issuance of US visas.".