MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia is in favor of the election of a woman for the post of UN Secretary-General, however the gender criteria should not be the main one, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said.
"We consider this idea to be fair… but we recognize the fact that the professional skills of the future head of the world organization, political weight, vision of development of the organization and a number of other issues should be the main criteria," Gatilov told RIA Novosti in an interview.
According to the deputy prime minister, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, who is in the candidates' list, is quite a worthy candidate for post of the United Nations chief.
"Objectively speaking, in reality, we could expect the process [of the elections] to become more active by October. We are talking about the elections themselves, presentation of the Security Council candidates to the General Assembly," Gatilov said.
"This will happen closer to the fall. There is time before that, other candidates may emerge, there is no need to restrict their potential artificially," he added.
Russia Thinks Next UN Chief Should Be From Eastern Europe
"There is a list of candidates, in particular, from the Eastern European group. Russia has initially supported the idea that the next organization's top official must be an Eastern European group's representative. Representatives of these region have never been appointed to this post. Maybe, this is a historic injustice, which should be corrected," Gatilov told RIA Novosti.
According to the diplomat, Russia is open for contacts with all candidates and the UN General Assembly has already held two sessions over potential candidates for the UN chief post.
Acting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's term of office expires on December 31, 2016.
