President Vladimir Putin of Russia has recently proposed holding a meeting of the leaders of Russia, China, the United States, France and the United Kingdom as permanent members of the UN Security Council and the founders of the Organization, in 2020.
The initiative that President V. Putin announced at the World Holocaust Remembrance Forum in Jerusalem has been already supported by French President E. Macron, according to sources from the Russia Embassy in Addis Ababa.
What’s in the proposal? The Ethiopian Herald had approached Evgeny Terekhin, Ambassador of Russia in Ethiopia. Here is what he said about it.
The need to convene the summit was caused by the ongoing degradation of international relations, part of which was the destruction of the international legal framework for maintaining global strategic stability.
The tasks of preserving peace, preventing large-scale conflict and creating favourable conditions for universal development that in this connection have come to the fore require a fresh look at the state of affairs and development of fundamentally new non-trivial approaches.
Ambassador Terekhin says that the summit will provide leaders with an opportunity to exchange views on the most pressing problems of our time.
“We consider the dialogue at such a level and in such a format to be very timely and needed in order to try to overcome the accumulated differences, get rid of the negative layers of the past, and together, in the spirit of cooperation and goodwill, try to outline the agreed contours of the progressive and harmonious development of the humanity.”
For Terekhin, the need to hold the summit “is aimed to impose a stabilizing effect on the course of world events.”
“It is not about creating a closed, exclusive club of the leading world powers. Russia has always been and remains committed to the principles of multilateral diplomacy based on compliance with international law and respect for the interests of all UN member states. We stand for strengthening collective principles in international affairs and are open to constructive interaction with all interested members of the world community,” he said.
With regard to the format of the summit, Terekhin says that leaders of the states of the Security Council permanent members were chosen because “it is they who have a special responsibility for putting into practice the goals and principles of the UN Charter, for maintaining international peace and security.”
Ambassador Terekhin is optimistic that permanent members of the UN Security Council and others would consider the proposal as important one and contribute to materialize it.
“Russia counts on a constructive consideration of its proposal by all the other UN Security Council permanent members and on understanding the concerns that formed the basis of our initiative by the rest of the international community,” he concluded.
The Ethiopian herald January 31/2020
BY STAFF REPORTER
