Oct. 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The President of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina, has dismissed the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Madagascar, Richard Randriamandranto, on Tuesday, after having voted in favor of a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly to condemn the “illegal” annexation by Russia of four regions of eastern Ukraine.
The vote meant a change of position for Antananarivo and it was not a decision consulted within the Government, so shortly after the Prime Minister, Christian Ntsay, assured that despite this the country remained neutral in the framework of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Randriamandranto, in an interview with Radio France Internationale (RFI), has confirmed his departure from the Executive, and has explained that, with his vote in favor of the United Nations resolution, he does not believe that “he has endangered the national interest” of Madagascar.
By 143 votes in favor and five against, the plenary session of the United Nations rejected on October 12 the annexation of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia to Russian territory, as proclaimed by the president, Vladimir Putin, at the end of September.
Only five countries — North Korea, Syria, Nicaragua, Belarus and Russia — voted against the UN resolution, entitled ‘Territorial Integrity of Ukraine: Upholding the Principles of the UN Charter’, while others 35 countries abstained, including India, China, Cuba and Pakistan.
The resolution was sponsored by up to 70 countries, in addition to Ukraine itself, all member states of the European Union, Australia, Georgia, South Korea, Moldova, Montenegro, Cambodia, the United Kingdom, Burma, several Latin American nations and others from the Pacific.
It is, therefore, the fourth resolution that has been presented to the General Assembly since then, all of them favorable to kyiv. However, they are not binding, unlike those that are submitted to the UN Security Council, which are, whose body has been hampered from taking action due to Russia’s right to veto.
