ID :
366093
Tue, 05/05/2015 - 11:51
Auther :

UN chief’s decision to visit Moscow on May 9 is ‘right’ - Russian envoy

UNITED NATIONS, May 5. /TASS/. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has made a "right and principled" decision to visit Moscow for the Victory Day celebrations despite being under pressure, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin has said. "I can say that, of course, this is a right and principled decision on his part. I know that he has been under great pressure not to do this," Churkin told Russian reporters, praising the UN chief for the move. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said earlier that the Secretary General planned to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and heads of other delegations present at the celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany. Dujarric said that after his departure for Moscow, the UN chief would stop in Gdansk, Poland, and in Ukraine’s capital Kiev on May 7 and 8 to meet President Bronislaw Komorowski and Pyotr Poroshenko alongside other officials. He failed to answer a question if Mr. Ban had discussed the upcoming visit to Moscow with the Ukrainian side. He reminded that the Soviet Union had lost a great number of lives in the fight against Nazi Germany and that’s why the UN chief would attend the celebrations. Last week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin said the UN chief’s visit to Moscow "would send a completely wrong message" and expressed hope that he would not be present at the May 9 parade in the Russian capital. Read more

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