US Dollar Cannot Be Reliable Currency if Used as Coercive Measure, Nebenzya Says

The world community cannot have the American dollar as the only currency because the US uses it as a weapon, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya told Sputnik.

"The process of switching to local currencies in mutual settlements reflects the desire of countries to get rid of dollar dependence. Especially since you heard from the minister [Russian FM Sergey Lavrov] at a press conference that the Americans said that the dollar is the common property of the whole world, and then they took and turned off the switch, introducing a variety of coercive measures not only against us," Nebenzya said. "Therefore, of course, under these conditions we cannot rely on the dollar as a world currency."

In the interview, Nebenzya also elaborated on the results of Russia's UN chairship in April, noting that the Russian mission has succeeded in everything they planned.

"Everything went smoothly, all the planned events of the month were completed," he said. "We have held open debates three times on the topic of arms transfers, on the issue of effective multilateralism and on the Middle East. The last two were chaired by [Russian Foreign] Minister Sergey Lavrov."

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He also noted that the attempts to accuse Russia of abusing its presidency at the UN Security Council violated every conceivable rule.

"The main thing is that there were no incidents during [Russia's UNSC] presidency, despite ridiculous attempts of some countries to accuse us that we can abuse the presidency and that someone else should preside instead of us, because, they say, Russia does not deserve to chair the Security Council," Nebenzya said. "It goes against every conceivable rule."

Most importantly, Nebenzya added, no one questioned either the British or the American presidencies in October and November 2003 after the coalition carried out an obvious aggression in Iraq.

Nebenzya underlined that the chairmanship of the Americans in May of 2022 was quite professional, unlike their predecessors – the UK – who violated the rules of the game at least four times.

The Russian UN presidency was overshadowed by delays in the issuance of visas to Lavrov and his press pool by the United States, which is home to the permanent UN headquarters. Moscow slammed Washington's decision not to issue visas, adding that the United States breached its pledges to protect freedom of speech. This led the top Russian diplomat to suggest that the UN office be relocated from New York.

However, Nebenzya stated that the US will never agree to relocating the UN because it would lose the opportunity to abuse host country privileges and a significant amount of money.

"First, to do this, the consent of at least two-thirds of the UN member states is required. Due to a number of circumstances, it is very difficult to achieve such a number of those who support the relocation of the headquarters," Nebenzya said. "Besides, the Americans themselves will never agree to this, because for them it is both prestige, and, particularly, the opportunity to abuse their duties as the host country of the organization, as well as a lot of money."

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Nebenzya said New York, according to the most conservative estimates, receives some $5 billion a year from the fact that the headquarters is located there and from the fact that diplomats from 193 countries live here.

"During my previous stay here on a long business trip – it was the second half of the 1990s, this topic was actively discussed. Many countries – not even just us – at that moment demanded from the Americans that they fulfill the duties of the host country and talked about whether we should move the organization to another place," Nebenzya said.

Nebenzya said he remembers how the deputy envoy of the US mission at that time, responding to these calls, said he would welcome going to the New York Pier to wave at delegations to the UN leaving from New York to Europe.

According to the diplomat, the UN takes a loss from the current geopolitical crisis but it undoubtedly represents individual countries worldwide through its Charter and embodies multilateralism, he outlined.

"The UN is to some extent a victim of the kind of global crisis in international relations that we are witnessing today. But the fact that we live in a UN-centric model of the world, and the UN, through its Charter, embodies this multilateralism, is something we do not doubt," Nebenzya said.

Nebenzya recalled the words of former French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabious who said that the world we have today has more and more multipolarity, but less and less multilateralism.

He also said there is "false multilateralism" in which countries create non-inclusive formats, make decisions, and then try to apply them universally onto everyone.

Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was at the UN presiding over Security Council meetings, discussed with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres the importance of further strengthening the central coordinating role of the UN in global politics and promoting "true" multilateralism based on fundamental international legal norms, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Nebenzya believes that the UN should be saved regardless of how it got altered since the 1990s.

"Earlier, in the 1990s, it seems to me, there was more multilateralism in the sense that the process of agreeing on decisions was of a collective nature. Now the situation has changed. There are attempts to blur the interstate foundations of the UN - because the UN is an interstate organization, not an NGO," Nebenzya said. "But I think that no matter the changes, we must preserve the organization."

US Dollar Cannot Be Reliable Currency if Used as Coercively: Russia's Permanent UNSC Representative