Baerbock promises Belarusian diplomat to ‘keep the door open’ if elected UNGA president

Former Foreign Minister of Germany Annalena Baerbock, who has been nominated as the candidate for the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly, promised to keep the door always open to listen to every member of the General Assembly. She made this statement, answering a question from Belarus’ Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Pavel Yevseyenko, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“My question is not about bilateral ties and your past professional activities, but about future cooperation. Please tell me, if I or my delegation should need a consultation and direct meeting with you on any issue on the agenda of the General Assembly of the upcoming session, will the Belarusian delegation be able to count on such interaction?” the Belarusian diplomat asked.

Annalena Baerbock responded: “Of course. The role of the President of the General Assembly is to serve all 193 Member States, including in the Eastern European group with which I spoke yesterday. We have not had the opportunity, but my door is always open. I am always ready to listen to each of the members of the General Assembly.”

Before voicing his question, Pavel Yevseyenko mentioned an episode directly related to multilateral humanitarian cooperation. It is about the recent decision not to allow Belarusian representatives to attend the commemorative ceremony on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp, which became another grim event in the series of deliberate bans on Belarusians and Russians from attending commemorative events in Germany related to the Great Patriotic War.

“I am not going to develop this topic further and do not expect any comments. Especially since there is nothing to say in response... Such actions today, in the 21st century, are hard to imagine, they are simply unacceptable. Unfortunately, such a foreign policy of Germany has not just alienated our countries in matters of further bilateral interaction, it has in principle excluded any cooperation on global issues of importance in the region and the world as a whole, becoming a lost time, in fact,” the Belarusian diplomat said.