Azerbaijani MFA: UN General Assembly's special session on COVID-19 pandemic continues

By Trend

The special session of the UN General Assembly on COVID-19 pandemic, which was convened on the initiative of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who currently is Chair of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), continues its work, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s Spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva said.

Abdullayeva was answering questions of media outlets about the session, Trend reports.

According to the spokesperson, the special session that officially opened on July 10, 2020, like all other sessions of the UN General Assembly, is being held in a format consisting of two segments.

The segment, in which procedural decisions were made, was completed on July 21. Within this segment, the following six decisions were adopted through a silence procedure and were published as official documents of the UN General Assembly.

- Decision on the election of Tijjani Muhammad Bande, the current president of the UN General Assembly’s 74th session, as president of the special session;

- Decision on the election of vice presidents of the special session;

- Decision on the election of chairs of six Main Committees;

- Decision on the adoption of the special session’s agenda;

- Decision on the approval of the composition of the special session’s Credentials Committee;

- Decision on the consideration of the list of states that have not paid for membership in the UN and thus, in accordance with Article 19 of the UN Charter, were deprived of the right to vote.

"Due to the ongoing pandemic, decisions within the UN General Assembly are made under a silence procedure. In accordance with the procedure, draft decisions are circulated to all UN members within 72 hours, and in the absence of a protesting state, they are adopted by the end of this time," Abdullayeva noted adding that given the restrictions imposed at the UN headquarters due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is impossible to hold official meetings of the UN General Assembly with the physical participation of delegations.

“In this regard, for the first time in history, the regular session of the General Assembly in September 2020 will be held in a mixed form, that is, depending on the wishes of the states, either through pre-recorded video messages from the heads of delegations, or with the physical participation of the permanent missions of these states to the UN in the Assembly’s hall,” said the spokesperson

“In connection with the situation that has developed in result of the pandemic, it’s envisaged to hold discussions of the special session on various segments in a different format from the previous special sessions. In this regard, the UN member states are discussing modalities in connection with the holding of the session at the level of heads of state and government in the format of videoconference. After reaching an appropriate agreement, specific dates for the discussions will be determined," added Abdullayeva.