'US unsuitable host': Russian President to skip UN General Assembly's high-level meet

Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin will again not attend this year’s high-level session of the United Nations General Assembly as the US is not a suitable host and "does not fulfil its obligations", it was announced on Tuesday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Russian leader has no plans to go to New York for the event.

"He hasn’t gone there in recent years. The US is a country that doesn’t fulfil its obligations as a host country of the UN headquarters in the best way. So, it’s probably not the best place to travel right now," he said, RT reported.

The last time the Russian President personally addressed a UN General Assembly session was in 2015, while in 2020 he delivered a pre-recorded speech at the event.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is slated to attend the UN General Assembly session, which opens on Tuesday and will end on September 30. It will culminate with a week of high-level events between September 23 and 27, which will feature attendance by numerous world leaders, including US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is also expected to attend and deliver a speech on September 25.

After the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the US imposed sanctions on numerous top Russian officials, including President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov. However, under the 1947 Headquarters Agreement between the US and the UN, Washington is obliged to grant diplomats and representatives of member states immunity and unimpeded access to UN headquarters.

Russian officials have on numerous occasions accused the US of failing in its UN obligations, pointing to long delays in issuing visas to Russian diplomatic personnel. In April 2023, the US also declined to grant entry to Russian journalists accompanying Lavrov to UN headquarters, with officials in Washington accusing them of spreading "propaganda".

Lavrov had denounced the decision, claiming that the US "had done something stupid" and showed "what its sworn assurances about protecting freedom of speech, access to information, and so on are really worth".