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Isolation of Russia at UNESCO Failed as Many Interested in Cooperating With Moscow, Envoy Says

06:41 GMT, 23 December 2022
© Sputnik / Anton Denisov
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PARIS (Sputnik) - Attempts to isolate Russia within UNESCO have failed as many member countries are interested in the development of cooperation with Moscow, Russian Permanent Representative to UNESCO Alexander Kuznetsov has told Sputnik.
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"More than two-thirds of UNESCO member states are interested in developing cooperation on the basis of its traditional mandate and do not take part in the Russia sanctions. So, the isolation of Russia, which the Westerners openly called for, did not happen," Kuznetsov said.

He added that not only has the anti-Russian campaign of the West failed to achieve its goal of isolating Moscow, but it has caused the opposite reaction.

"Most member states perceive Russia as an important balancing factor within UNESCO and are sympathetic to our efforts to depoliticize it [the organization]," Kuznetsov said.

In addition, the envoy demanded that UNESCO resolve the issue of admittance of Russia's representatives to the organization's international events.

"The French authorities did not issue them entry visas, thus blatantly violating the agreement between the host country and UNESCO, which has been in effect since 1954... Our demand is that the issue of admission of Russian representatives to international meetings within this organization be settled once and for all by the [organization's] secretariat with the French side," Kuznetsov said.

According to him, at least two senior Russian diplomats that were supposed to attend the meeting at the invitation of the UNESCO secretariat, could not do it because of these obstacles.
A picture taken on October 12, 2017 shows the logo of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris.
© AFP 2023 / JACQUES DEMARTHON
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in late November that the French authorities had not issued visas to Russian officials to participate in the UNESCO event. France's Foreign Ministry claimed that the Russian authorities did not inform Paris about the problem with the issuance of visas for Russian officials, adding that France had always issued visas to delegations for UNESCO events in due time and used communication channels if there were any problems.
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