The UN General Assembly violated the organization's Charter by including in its agenda an item entitled “The situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.” The issue of “occupation” is considered by the UN Security Council, not the General Assembly, therefore the inclusion of this clause contradicts international rules.
The representative of Syria stated this while speaking at the UN General Assembly, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The inclusion of an agenda item entitled “The situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine” on the agenda of the General Assembly, both in the past and in the future, is a unilateral, irresponsible, politicized step that reflects the desire of some governments to escalate in this region and settle scores, old and new, with the Russian Federation. Even if this happens at the expense of international, regional security and stability, at the expense of historical good relations between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples.
This issue must be determined by very clearly stated legal principles, which are enshrined in the UN Charter and relevant international agreements and norms of international law. This suggests the need to reconsider the appropriateness and legality of including this item on the agenda of the General Assembly.
The legal principles are as follows: first, the General Assembly, in considering this issue, is committing an intrusion into the mandate of the Security Council. This is a violation of Article 12 of the Charter of the Organization, the first paragraph, in particular “when the Security Council is exercising the functions assigned to it by this Charter in relation to any dispute or situation, the General Assembly may not make any recommendations relating to this dispute or situation unless the Security Council requests it."
In this regard, we would like to emphasize that the inclusion of the phrase “temporarily occupied territories” in the title of the agenda item does not change the fact that the issue is part of the prerogatives of the Security Council,” the Syrian representative said.