MOSCOW. April 22 (Interfax) - The restrictions associated with the coronavirus pandemic currently do not allow for a decision to be made on the date of a meeting of the leaders of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, but it remains under consideration, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.
"As to a meeting among the leaders in person, that is, the proposal made by President Putin during his time in western Jerusalem, this issue is now at the stage of active discussion," Ryabkov said on Wednesday.
The agenda of the meeting "is currently quite raw," he said. "We will be working on it and communicate it to all our colleagues, not to mention the fact that the pandemic and the restrictions associated with it have put a certain limit on how we can now discuss, in principle, the timeframe and the month, but we will also go back to this issue in the near-term perspective, as soon as circumstances allow," Ryabkov said.
Simultaneous preparations for an in-person meeting of the leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as a meeting in a videoconference format, are currently ongoing, and "there is progress on both tracks," he said.
"In the situation with online contacts among the leaders, [the progress] is not enough yet to announce a specific date, timeframe, let alone talk about the results of such an online summit," Ryabkov said.
Experts and foreign policy agencies are currently working on preparing for a meeting among the leaders of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, he said.