THE UNITED NATIONS, November 8. /TASS/. Several countries voted against Russia's proposal to consider moving UN General Assembly's First Committee session from New York to Vienna or Geneva because of pressure from Washington, Russia's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva Andrey Belousov told reporters on Friday.
The UN General Assembly's First Committee on disarmament voted against Russia's proposal to consider moving its sessions from the United States if the UN and Washington fail to resolve visa issues of Russian delegates. Eighteen countries supported Russia's proposal, 69 states voted against it, and another 72 countries abstained.
"Most countries were cautious," Belousov said. "The reasons were different. Some of them were under strong pressure from the United States. Others hid behind the excuse that the visa issue is not in the competence of the First Committee," he added.
The diplomat said that US attempts to use visa issuance policy to influence the composition of delegations, complicate the work of different UN agencies, including on disarmament issues. "And now we see crises in this sphere which may lead to catastrophic consequences for the whole architecture of international security," Belousov noted.
At the same time, the work of the Russian delegation at the current session of the UN First Committee can be described as successful, as several Russia-proposed resolutions on cyber security and arms control were adopted, he added. "Of course, the First Committee's substantive work and adoption of very important resolutions is another issue altogether. From the point of view of promoting our drafts, we can say that this session was successful for Russia and those countries that supported our position," Belousov concluded.