Russia Accuses U.S. of Denying Visa for Deputy Foreign Minister to UN Meeting, Citing Breach of Host Duties
By David Brunnstrom and Simon Lewis
May 26 (Reuters) — Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday accused the United States of failing to grant a visa to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alimov for a Security Council meeting, describing the denial as a breach of U.S. commitments under the UN Headquarters Agreement.
Vassily Nebenzia made the remark during a session chaired by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, a meeting he said Alimov had been invited to attend. The incident underscores persistent tensions over Washington's role as host of the world body, where visa delays and denials have increasingly become a diplomatic flashpoint.
A separate UN diplomat said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi also appeared to have been denied a visa for the same meeting, though a U.S. State Department official later insisted on Wednesday that Washington did not block the minister from traveling to New York. Iran’s state media had earlier cited “overall circumstances and issues related to U.S. visa procedures” for canceling Araqchi’s trip.
The debate’s main theme was upholding the UN Charter and strengthening multilateral cooperation. Discussions are set to resume Thursday after a UN holiday on Wednesday.
Neither the State Department nor the U.S. mission to the UN responded to requests for comment on Alimov or Araqchi on Tuesday. A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States takes its obligations under the Headquarters Agreement seriously and referred questions about Iran’s delegation travel decisions to Tehran.
Nebenzia said Alimov, who oversees UN-related matters, was invited by Wang, and called the visa denial “an egregious instance of disrespect” for China’s presidency of the Security Council, particularly given the meeting’s focus on the UN Charter.
“Despite all of our attempts to persuade the U.S. side to issue a visa to him, that visa was ultimately not granted,” Nebenzia said. He stressed that under the Headquarters Agreement, access to UN headquarters in New York “needs to be provided for all officials of member states, barring none.”
China’s mission said it had no information about visa issues.
UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told a briefing Tuesday: “We expect the host country to issue visas to all of those who need to participate in the activities of the United Nations at our headquarters here.” Haq added that Araqchi was not in New York and would not meet UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as scheduled, though he did not know the reason.
In a related development, Iran said Tuesday that the United States had violated a ceasefire in the region after U.S. forces conducted what Washington called defensive strikes in southern Iran. The White House on Wednesday dismissed an Iranian state television report claiming a framework deal to restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and withdraw U.S. forces from the area as “a complete fabrication.”
Wang Yi told reporters he hoped the parties in the conflict would remain committed to the ceasefire and meet each other halfway.
Nebenzia also warned that the UN Charter was under serious strain, accusing Western-led countries of using double standards to maintain dominance. He singled out remilitarization in Germany and Japan as dangerous threats to global security, saying it was “undoing the results of World War Two.”
“The policy of remilitarization is undermining the UN-centric international system,” Nebenzia said. “Countries that were defeated during the Second World War are seeking plausible pretexts for rewriting its outcomes, and their rhetoric should not mislead anybody. This is a very dangerous trend, which warrants the attention of the entire international community.”
Wang called for reinvigorating the UN Charter amid rising instability and conflict, warning that “a giant ship of global civilization is sailing into dangerous waters.”
Guterres told the meeting the world now faced the highest number of conflicts since the UN’s founding in 1945, along with “new and uncharted risks to peace and security.”
The visa dispute, analysts say, threatens to further erode trust in the UN’s ability to function neutrally, especially when the host nation is also a permanent Security Council member with its own geopolitical interests.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Jonathan Landay and Simon Lewis; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Chizu Nomiyama, Sanjeev Miglani and Cynthia Osterman)