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Expert: Russia Should Not Ignore 'International Law Violations' of US Visa Denial for Journos

While Moscow's month-long presidency in the UN Security Council (UNSC) is coming to an end, the US has denied issuing visas for Russian journalists who were supposed to cover the work of the Russian UN delegation this week.
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The US decision not to let Russian journalists cover Russia's UNSC work on April 24-25 is a violation of international regulations that Russia should not leave without attention, Benoît Ngom, president of the African Diplomatic Academy (ADA), told Sputnik.

"When it comes to the denial of visas to Russian officials, it is important that Russia can demonstrate that the Americans did it in violation of international regulations," said Ngom.

According to the expert, Russia and any other country which faces the same violation of international law next time should raise this question at the international level.

I think it would also be good for these countries to try to show at the international level where there is a flaw [...] In the second case of violations of international conventions by the United States, it would be really good if the big countries that have suffered this could demonstrate the arbitrary action of the United States of America! I think that would be interesting.

Benoît Ngom
President of the African Diplomatic Academy
Lavrov Spearheads Multilateralism and Fairer World Order in UN Security Council
The expert also stated that Africans are the ones who suffer from the so-called "visas instablility" most, as many of them often face the problem entering some of Western countries even after fulfilling all the visas conditions.

"Young Africans cannot go to these [Western] countries spontaneously. [...] In many European countries, the granting of visas does not follow any logic. Sometimes, people think they have fulfilled all the conditions like visas for France, and then you find that your visa application has been rejected! So, this problem of mobility is of great interest to Africans," outlined Ngom.

According to the Russian foreign minister, in recent months, the US has been deliberately delaying the process of issuing visas for the Russian diplomats scheduled to take part in this week's Security Council events. Only on April 14, the US started to issue visas for the Russian delegation.

"Yes, we were given visas, but, as always, this was done with a gross abuse of the position of the host country of the UN Headquarters. They hesitated for a long time, then they issued visas, but not for the entire delegation, some of our employees were not on the list," Lavrov said on April 19 during a joint presser with his Venezuelan counterpart.