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By: EFE Updated 27 Feb 2022, 02: 58 pm EST
The UN Security Council passed a resolution to convene an urgent special session on Ukraine in the General Assembly , the organ in which the 193 Member states of the organization.
The initiative, promoted by the United States and Albania, went ahead with eleven votes to favor, three abstentions -China, India and the United Arab Emirates- and a single vote against, from Russia, which in this case did not have veto power as it was a procedural decision.
The movement arrives after the Friday Russia blocked a resolution in the Security Council that condemned its invasion and ordered the withdrawal of troops and seeks that the Assembly, where Moscow cannot veto decisions, approve a similar document over the next few days.
According to diplomatic sources icas, it is expected that the special session will start this Monday, but that the vote on the text will not take place before Wednesday, to give all the delegations time to analyze it with their capitals.
To take the matter to the General Assembly, USA. The US and Albania have used a formula that allows the Security Council to refer a peace and security issue to that body in the event of a blockade by a permanent member, a route that had not been used successfully in four decades.
Urgent sessions of this type, in fact, have been very rare throughout the history of the General Assembly, whose resolutions do not carry the same weight than those of the Security Council, which is normally in charge of managing conflicts.
The United States and its allies seek to achieve the maximum number of possible supports among the 193 UN countries in an attempt to show Russia’s isolation.
On Friday, when they presented the resolution that Moscow vetoed in the Security Council, they already gathered more than eighty co-sponsors of the initiative, for so it is expected that the resolution will go ahead without problems in the Assembly.
The US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, assured that this resolution will serve to ensure that Russia “is accountable” and, addressing the Russian military, he stressed that the “world is watching” their attacks and will hold them accountable.
In a speech before the Council, Thomas -Greenfield defended the need to take “extraordinary measures to respond to this threat to the international system and do everything possible to help Ukraine and its people.”
“Let’s have the courage of the Ukrainians who stand up bravely to defend their democracy and their way of life and their futures. Let’s show them they are not alone,” she insisted.
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