UN: Eight countries, including Iran and Venezuela, lose voting rights

Eight states, including Venezuela, Iran and Sudan, lost their right to vote at the UN due to excessive debt to the organization, Secretary General Antonio Guterres announced to members of the General Assembly on Tuesday night.

In total, “11 member states are currently in arrears in the payment of their contributions based on Article 19 of the United Nations Charter,” the UN chief said in his letter on Wednesday.

This article provides for the suspension of voting rights in the General Assembly of any country whose amount of arrears is equal to or greater than the contribution owed by it during the last two full years..

If the non-compliance is due to “circumstances beyond its control”, a State referred to in article 19 may, however, retain its right to vote. This is the case for 2022 for the islands of Comoros, São Tomé and Príncipe and Somalia, Guterres specifies.

In addition to Iran, Sudan and Venezuela, the other five countries that have lost their right to vote are Antigua and Barbuda, Congo, Guinea, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatuhe adds.

The secretary general specified the minimum amount that each country must pay to regain its right to vote: Venezuela about 40 million dollars, Iran about 18 million and Sudan about 300 thousand.

Last year, Iran had already lost its right to vote due to bad debts.

Tehran had argued that it could not meet the minimum required to repay the debt due to economic and financial sanctions imposed by the United States..

After several months of negotiations, Tehran obtained an exemption that allowed it to pay the required minimum debt and regain its voting rights in June, just before the election of new members of the UN Security Council.

Iran “undertakes to pay in full and on time” its contributions, the Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted in Tehran.

“Unfortunately, for the second year in a row, due to oppressive and illegal sanctions from the United States, payments from our country have been problematic,” he added.

“The UN Secretary-General and the secretariat should take into account the specific circumstances of countries facing illegal sanctions and not hesitate to help them pay their contributions.“, also estimated the Iranian ministry.

The UN’s annual budget, approved in December, is around 3 billion dollars and that of its peacekeeping missions, adopted separately in June, around 6.5 billion.

MS

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