world

Recently, strong arguments have been advanced that the UN headquarters in New York should be relocated to any other country. Such a trend was reinforced before and after the opening of the 80th UN General Assembly Session.

It is due to the arrogant high-handed and arbitrary manner of the US.

Historically, the US has behaved as if neither international organizations nor international treaties would exist without it. It ran a one-man show and lorded it over other countries in many international treaties and organizations including the Paris agreement on climate change, WHO and UNESCO, even suspending the payment of its membership contributions or breaking away from them.

It has not paid up its contribution to the UN recently, causing many problems in the management and operation of the UN headquarters.

The US’ insolence has provoked a series of incidents during the current 80th UN General Assembly Session.

One of them is the measure it took to invalidate the visa of the Colombian president. After the president took part in a meeting held in support of Palestinians in front of the UN headquarters on September 29, the US administration immediately nullified his visa.

The Colombian president strongly reacted to the US measure at once.

He criticized the US, saying that the invalidation of his visa for the reason that he condemned the massacre by Israel shows that the US no longer respects international law. He also censured the US for refusing to issue visas of the Palestinian representatives including Palestinian President Abbas so that they could not participate in the current UN General Assembly Session, noting that the US government does not observe international law and this shows that it is no longer suitable for the UN to be headquartered in New York.

Heads of state and government and delegates of many countries who took the floor for general policy speech at the 80th UN General Assembly Session expressed their intention to house the UN bodies and agencies in their countries.

The Turkish president said at the UN General Assembly session that he intends to turn Istanbul into the centre of the UN. He had once advocated the plan for making Istanbul the “world capital” of the UN over a decade ago when he worked as prime minister.

Qatar proposed relocating the office of the International Labour Organization to it. Rwanda also expressed an interest in moving to it UN organizations such as the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Kenya announced that it is ready to accept the relocation of UNICEF, the UN women’s organization and others to the country.

The Serbian president also expressed his willingness to house several UN bodies and organizations in his country. He explained that Serbia is located at a crossroads of Europe, giving easy access to it from the east and west, and it is also superior to New York and Geneva from the aspect of cost-efficiency.

Many countries are now propagating their cities as the potential centre of the UN. As many countries have been disillusioned with the US, which dictates that everything should be subordinated to its interests and if not, international organizations and treaties are useless, it has become a global trend to cope with its arbitrary practice.