Attempts to blame Russia of abusing UNSC presidency ridiculous: Russia

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Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia rebuked on Friday attempts to blame Russia for abusing its presidency at the UN Security Council during the month of April, noting that the move demonstrates a violation of every conceivable rule within the organization.

"The main thing is that there were no incidents during [Russia's UNSC] presidency, despite ridiculous attempts of some countries to accuse us that we can abuse the presidency and that someone else should preside instead of us, because, they say, Russia does not deserve to chair the Security Council," Nebenzia told Sputnik.

"It goes against every conceivable rule," he added.

The Russian envoy further raised to attention that not a single member state questioned the UK and the US presidencies in October and November 2003 when the two waged full-blown aggression on Iraq.

Touchin on Russia's mission to the UN, Nebenzia said that "everything went smoothly, all the planned events of the month were completed."

"We have held open debates three times on the topic of arms transfers, on the issue of effective multilateralism and on the Middle East. The last two were chaired by [Russian Foreign] Minister Sergey Lavrov," he indicated.

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Elsewhere, Nebenzia concluded by saying that the chairmanship of the Americans in May of 2022 was quite professional, unlike their predecessors - the UK - who violated the rules of the game at least four times.

Russia took over the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council for the month of April. The Russian presidency was overshadowed by delays in the issuance of visas to Lavrov and his press pool by the United States, which is home to the permanent UN headquarters.

This led the top Russian diplomat to suggest that the UN office be relocated from New York. On April 25, Lavrov said it would be "good" if the organization relocated its headquarters from New York to elsewhere. 

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