Lavrov: US Should Be Deprived of Blocking Quota in IMF
© Sputnik / Ilya Pitalev
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ANTALYA (Sputnik) - The United States has been actively abusing its blocking quota in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), especially with regard to the redistribution of voting rights, and should be deprived of the possibility to do so, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.
"The US is blocking the redistribution of votes and quotas of the International Monetary Fund, although the BRICS countries have long had to have more votes and more quotas, if the original rules are to be applied, especially given the expansion of the entire structure. The Americans should lose their blocking quota," Lavrov said at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum.
Quotas reflect the position of each IMF member state in the global economy. The quota determines the number of votes corresponding to each member state in IMF decisions. Each country has 250 basic votes and one additional vote for each 100,000 special drawing rights of quota. Currently, the US holds a quota of 17.43%, while its voting share is 16.50%.
Lavrov also noted that any unanimous decisions made by the UN Security Council and General Assembly on the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are regularly "sabotaged" by the United States.
"There are also decisions on Palestine, on the establishment of a Palestinian state that are adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly. But these decisions are sabotaged. And they have been sabotaged and continue to be sabotaged primarily by the United States," Lavrov said.
The US has regularly impeded any resolution on Gaza that may hinder Israeli military operations. Washington, in particular, blocked a Brazil-drafted resolution in October 2023, a resolution drafted by the United Arab Emirates, which called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, in December 2023, and an Algeria-proposed draft resolution in February 2024.
Russian Foreign Minister also took the opportunity to indicate that the UN Security Council did a great job to achieve a settlement in Ukraine in 2014-2015 and cannot be blamed for the current conflict.
"In the case of Ukraine, the UN did its job. When the parties to the conflict in Donbas, after the coup, the bloody war, signed an agreement [Minsk II] in February 2015 under the guarantees of Germany and France, the UN Security Council unanimously approved that agreement by adopting a resolution, and thus made the agreement binding. It is not the fault of the UN Security Council that no one was going to implement those agreements," Lavrov said at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum.
