Events

27 Jul 2023

Belarus’ mission to UN told to step up work

MINSK, 27 July (BelTA) – Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko has instructed to step up work of the country’s permanent mission to the United Nations Organization, BelTA learned from Permanent Representative of Belarus to the United Nations Organization Valentin Rybakov after the official delivered his report to the head of state.

Valentin Rybakov said: “The president gave a number of instructions to step up work of our permanent representation in the UN with UN member states. We will continue doing it. There are a number of avenues where we very successfully work. Some of the avenues were born after speeches by Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko. In particular, the matter of fighting trafficking in persons, some other matters. This is why we will continue working actively, cooperating with countries, and promoting our national interests.”

He said that the United Nations Organization is first and foremost 193 countries, including Belarus, not the secretary general, the UN Secretariat, and international functionaries. “The people I’ve listed enable the work of the organization’s member states,” Valentin Rybakov noted. “We [the general public] very often confuse things and for some reason believe that the United Nations Organization is some menacing structure, a building somewhere in the center of Manhattan on the bank of the East River.”

Valentin Rybakov reminded that Belarus was one of the 50 countries that founded the United Nations Organization and the organization has been criticized actually since its establishment.

“And there are things worth criticizing it for. Bureaucracy, slow decision-making, some other things, excessive politicization. What the president mentioned during today’s meeting: personnel of the UN Secretariat, who are supposed to be impartial and favor no side, now engage in politicking in certain conflict situations and do favor sides,” he said. “We work with member states. It is our main task. We have certain accomplishments, failures, and difficulties, against which we heroically fight. It is a unique international platform. It is unique because it is the only platform where virtually all the countries in the world are represented. And this is why the organization is valuable.”

Belarus’ representative to the UN explained that the UN’s international functionaries cannot dictate anything to anyone as far as the agenda is concerned. The agenda consists of the matters that are submitted for consideration of the UN General Assembly or the UN Security Council by countries themselves. For instance, the UN General Assembly has considered matters brought up by Belarus. Those are fight against trafficking in persons, cooperation in Chernobyl-related affairs, sustainable development of medium-income countries, protection of interests of the traditional family, and some other things.

The UN Security Council operates in the same manner. “Any state or a group of states can submit a matter for consideration of the Security Council. And the matter is considered then. Taking into account the situation around Belarus, it is very important to keep some negative things for us from becoming an item on the agenda of the UN Security Council or the UN General Assembly. So, we successfully counteract this negative scenario where we have to,” Valentin Rybakov noted.

One of the little victories secured by Belarusian diplomats is ending discussions about the Ryanair Flight 4978 incident in the UN Security Council. “We have closed the topic of the Ryanair incident virtually with one our speech in the Security Council. Our speech completely closed this chapter. The Security Council has never discussed the matter since,” Valentin Rybakov said.

Valentin Rybakov told reporters about another diplomatic victory secured by Belarus in the United Nations Organization.

Valentin Rybakov said: “This year we were supposed to present a draft resolution on Chernobyl-related cooperation. Understanding the regional situation, we refused to do it. We understood that our draft could have been amended by other countries. They have the full right to do it. They could have added things that we absolutely don’t condone. And then we would have been in a situation where we would have to submit the document and do something with it afterwards – revoke it, counteract all these negative aspects. We didn’t submit the draft resolution.”

In his words, then Ukraine submitted a draft resolution on Chernobyl-related cooperation. “They virtually stole the complete text of the previous resolution, the previous draft from us,” Valentin Rybakov said.

“But to the surprise of Ukraine and European countries (the situation shocked them) Belarus and Russia acted as coauthors. Russia acted as a coauthor of the Ukrainian resolution. We even got calls from European colleagues, who wondered whether we had made a mistake and whether we actually understood what we were doing by coauthoring a resolution submitted by Ukraine. Yes, we do understand. It is a normal resolution. The text is good. We are satisfied with it. Why not? Chernobyl-related cooperation is a sacred thing for us,” Belarus’ representative to the UN said.

Valentin Rybakov pointed out that these seemingly small victories are not that easy to secure and they are very beneficial for the country. “We will continue this work,” the diplomat assured.



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