Iran FM departs for attending UN human rights council

.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will help kick off the latest and longest-ever session of the UN’s top human rights body on Monday, with Iran’s foreign minister, a senior Russian envoy, and the top diplomats of France and Germany among scores of leaders set to take part, the Associated Press reported.

According to the report, on Monday, among the speakers after Guterres and the presidents of Congo, Montenegro and Colombia, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian will come up between Germany’s Annalena Baerbock and France’s Catherine Colonna. China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, is set to make a statement by video.

Moscow is set to be represented at the highest level since Russia suspended its council membership last year — largely because the UN General Assembly was on the cusp of stripping it. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, known more for his expertise on defense matters, is set to attend on Thursday. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to speak by video message the same day.

Proponents say the Geneva-based rights body has grown in importance as a diplomatic venue because the UN Security Council in New York has been increasingly divided in recent years due to a major rift between affiliations among its five permanent members: China and Russia on one side, Britain, France and the United States on the other.

The council, made up of 47 members countries, takes up an extensive array of human rights issues — including discrimination, the freedom of religion, right to housing or the deleterious impact of economic sanctions targeting governments on regular people — as well as country “situations” like those in Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, Nicaragua and South Sudan. It usually meets three times a year.

Amir-Abdollahian left Tehran for Geneva on Sunday evening to attend the UN council’s meeting:

MNA/PR