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No alternative yet to New York as UN headquarters — Russian mission

According to the Russian diplomat, countries are not always willing to move their diplomatic missions elsewhere due to financial considerations

UNITED NATIONS, December 30. /TASS/. There is currently no alternative to New York as the location of the United Nations headquarters but the United States has to react to Russia’s criticism, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyansky said on Friday.

"Indeed, this topic has been raised, as we have heard calls for the headquarters’ relocation more than once," he said in a live broadcast on his Telegram channel. "In technical terms, it looks quite simple, but in practice, this decision must be made by the UN General Assembly. <…> Three fourths of states must vote in favor of moving the headquarters. It is a serious task to get three fourths of states to support this scenario."

According to the Russian diplomat, countries are not always willing to move their diplomatic missions elsewhere due to financial considerations.

"So far, unfortunately, there is no alternative to New York as the host city of the UN headquarters. That doesn’t mean that all countries are happy with that," "When we raise issues about our situation here, the non-issuance of visas and other problems we are facing, <…> many countries support us. There are special bodies that deal with the host country and a lot of criticism is voiced there. The Americans have to react to our criticism, to criticism from other countries."

"So far, we don’t have the critical amount so that three fourths of [UN General Assembly] states can pass a decision to move the UN headquarters," he added.

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Foreign policy United States United Nations

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