Russia is pushing its candidate to the head of UN department on terrorism
The Russian Foreign Ministry expects that the new UN department to fight terrorism will be headed by a representative of Russia, as stated by Dmitry Feoktistov, Deputy Director of the Department on New Challenges and Threats of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, RIA Novosti reports.
He said that Russia has already nominated its candidate for this post, but did not mention the name of the Russian contender. “We are speaking about the representative of Russia being appointed to the newly created position of the UN Deputy Secretary-General for Combating Terrorism,” Feoktistov said.
Therefore, the representative of the Foreign Ministry said that Russia is actively working to promote its candidate. “We expect that our candidate will be confirmed. The current Secretary General gave us assurances that this position will be filled by Russia. This is also in recognition of the weighty role that Russia plays in the fight against terrorism both inside the country and abroad,” he said.
The proposal to establish the UN Department for Combating Terrorism was put forward by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres while speaking in Moscow at an international conference of the Russian Defense Ministry in April. As was reported in the newspaper Kommersant, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, was nominated by Russia for the post. His post in Washington could be filled by Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Antonov.