UN chief recommends scaled-back UN meeting of world leaders amid pandemic

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is recommending that the annual gathering of world leaders in late September, which was speculated to rejoice the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, be dramatically scaled again due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Guterres advised in a letter to the president of the General Assembly that heads of state and authorities ship prerecorded messages as an alternative, with just one New York-based diplomat from every of the 193 U.N. member nations current within the General Assembly Hall.

Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande has stated a call on the annual gathering will likely be made after consultations with U.N. member states.

The assembly of world leaders normally brings 1000’s of presidency officers, diplomats and civil society representatives to New York for over every week of speeches, dinners, receptions, one-on-one conferences and a whole bunch of aspect occasions.

This 12 months was anticipated to convey an particularly massive variety of leaders to U.N. headquarters to rejoice the founding of the United Nations in 1945 on the ashes of World War II.

But New York has been an epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic with over 190,000 circumstances and almost 16,000 confirmed deaths.

Guterres stated within the letter, first reported by the Press Trust of India and obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, that though September is a few months away “the medical community anticipates that the pandemic will continue to cycle with varying degrees of severity, depending on the ability of the affected nation to implement aggressive identification, testing, tracing and containment measures.”

“It is expected, therefore, that international travel restrictions may remain in place for some destinations — meaning quarantines might affect travelers to and from New York City,” he stated.

While the General Assembly might take into account suspending the high-level assembly to a date in 2021, he stated it could be higher to carry it at first of the brand new General Assembly session in September.

This will enable the U.N.’s work “to continue uninterrupted, albeit in a different format, and for world leaders to convey their views on important international issues, including on the international response to the pandemic, as well as to hear the views of other leaders,” Guterres stated.

General Assembly spokeswoman Reem Abaza reiterated Tuesday that “no decision has been made yet” concerning the annual gathering.