On Sunday, Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mekdad left Damascus for New York to participate in the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, which takes place next Tuesday and lasts for nearly a week.
Al-Watan learned from informed sources that the delegation, which arrives in New York on Monday to participate in the UN General Assembly, is headed by Mekdad and includes Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Bashar al-Jaafari and the director of the minister’s office.
According to al-Watan’s sources, Mekdad will deliver a speech about Syria on the 26th of this month. His speech will depend on the alphabetical order of the participating countries. Mekdad will also meet with several delegations’ heads of participating countries.
On Saturday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement quoted by AFP: “Trust must be restored, the geo-strategic division currently present in the world is an obstacle,” adding that the world “is in a very critical situation and a warning must be issued to alert political officials.”
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Last year’s UN General Assembly meeting was held online, where participants refrained from traveling because of the quarantine imposed by the United States.
Diplomats said this year that “the situation cannot be repeated”, instead “the presence of the UN must be proven”.
Despite the announcement by the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN, Linda Thomas Greenfield, that U.S. President Joe Biden will join the U.S. delegation participating in the meeting, the UN Secretary-General revealed that Washington has “asked the heads of state and government of other countries not to come for reasons related to COVID-19.” He added, “Since March 2020, I am proud that the UN headquarters in New York has never been the epicenter of COVID-19’s spread, and I hope this will continue.”
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
