Albania’s ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Ferit Hoxha, defended, in an interview with Lusa, that “Russia should be, of course, outside the Security Council and the Organization”, as it is not a country “supporter of peace”.
For the diplomat, although it is obvious that Moscow does not meet the conditions to remain in the United Nations after the serious violations of its Charter with the invasion of Ukraine, it is necessary to take into account two aspects: “the moral and the legal”.
“On the moral aspect, of course, a country that does not respect the charter of the United Nations, and article two, which makes the United Nations the Assembly of countries adhering to peace… Russia today is not a country adhering to peace. Therefore, Russia should be, of course, outside the Security Council and outside the UN, if we had the means”, advocated the diplomat.
“The legal thing is, we can’t do that. Because to change the composition of the Council, we need not only two-thirds of the United Nations, but also the five permanent members. So I don’t see Russia voting against itself,” he noted.
In an interview with Lusa at the Security Council hall, in New York, the representative of the small Balkan country of 2.8 million inhabitants which, together with the United States, is the co-holder of the Ukraine dossier, said he saw no possibility of peace in the moment.
“I think this war of choice started by Russia – and probably by one person in Russia [Vladimir Putin] – is at a kind of point of no return. (…) We see that Russia is still convinced that Ukraine should not exist, that the territory of Ukraine can be Russian, and they have formally annexed four new territories, in addition to Crimea. So we don’t see any possibilities, no appetite for negotiations right now,” he said.
The Albanian representative hopes that spring will bring news in this regard, which will allow evaluating new negotiation possibilities.
With a look to the future, Hoxha also took the opportunity to draw attention to the UN’s failures in matters of conflict prevention, arguing that the European Union is the only example to follow in this context.
“We still haven’t built an international structure for prevention. And this is the weakness of multilateralism. Only one place, one region, one body did prevention par excellence, and that was the European Union”, he stressed.
“Since the Second World War, when European countries used to fight each other, kill each other, when they united by interest and purpose, they made conflict impossible. This is the template. This is how the world should evolve. They should look to the European Union, which obviously does not have an easy job today. There are many contradictions. There are many misinterpretations. But step aside a little and see that the European Union is absolutely the place, the model, the project, the best that humanity has ever seen to work in prevention”, reinforced the diplomat.
For Ferit Hoxha, neither the “UN, nor the Security Council, nor the Arab League, nor the OIC [Organization for Islamic Cooperation] nor the African Union are capable of looking at prevention”: “Only one place does that and it is the European Union”, he reinforced.
The Russian military offensive in Ukrainian territory, launched on February 24 last year, plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since the Second World War (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, justified by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security, was condemned by the international community in general, which has responded by sending arms to Ukraine and imposing Russia from political and economic sanctions.
