March 18 () –
The spokesperson for the president of the 77th United Nations General Assembly, Csaba Korosi, has confirmed that he would be willing to meet with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, despite the ruling of the International Criminal Court (ICC) this Friday, which calls for his arrest to investigate war crimes allegedly committed on his orders.
“President Korosi represents all Member States of the General Assembly, and that includes Russia,” said General Assembly spokesperson Paulina Kubiak. “He has been willing and remains willing to meet with Vladimir Putin,” she added.
Also this Friday, the spokesman for the Secretary General, Stéphane Dujarric, assured that António Guterres “will meet with whoever he has to meet” to advance the UN’s objectives, in response to the response from journalists about whether he would be willing to arrange a meeting with Putin.
“As a general rule, the Secretary General will speak to whomever he has to speak to in order to advance his agenda,” said Dujarric, who has also stressed on several occasions that the ICC and the UN are independent bodies.
Regarding Guterres’s reaction to the arrest warrant issued this Friday against the Russian president, Dujarric has limited himself to responding that “regarding the issue of children” they have expressed their concern.”
The arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin and the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights of the Russian Federation, Maria Alekseievna Lvova-Belova, represent the first international charges filed since the start of the conflict and come after months of work by a team special investigation under the orders of the chief prosecutor of the CFI, Karim Khan.
