Tokyo, 24 February, /AJMEDIA/
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Thursday called for global efforts to make Russia withdraw from Ukraine, saying a “terrible precedent” should not be set after nearly a year of war in the country.
“Imagine yourself. What if one permanent member of the Security Council would launch an aggression against your homeland, grab your territory, and then cease hostilities, calling for peace. I would call it an unjust peace,” Hayashi told a U.N. General Assembly emergency session on the Ukraine war.
“It would be a victory for the aggressor if such actions were tolerated. It would set a terrible precedent for the rest of the planet,” Hayashi said at the U.N. headquarters in New York, a day before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Late Thursday, the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to demand Russia withdraw its troops from Ukraine in a resolution passed the day before the first anniversary of its invasion of the neighboring country.
The resolution was adopted at an emergency special session of the deliberative organ of the United Nations. Of the 193 members, 141, including Japan, voted in favor, and seven against, with 32 abstentions.
The three-page document demands that Russia “immediately, completely, and unconditionally” remove its troops from Ukraine and deplores the high number of civilian casualties, including women and children, since the start of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 last year.
It calls for a “just, sustainable, and lasting peace” in Ukraine and demands that those who have committed war crimes in the conflict be held to account.
The resolution also “calls for an immediate cessation of the attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine and any deliberate attacks on civilian objects, including those that are residences, schools and hospitals.”
“In this war, there are no two sides. There is an aggressor and a victim,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the assembly on Wednesday, the first day of the session.
“The world will drown in chaos if we allow changing borders by force,” Kuleba said.
Belarus, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia and Syria voted against the resolution, while China and India abstained.
Speaking on Wednesday, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, called the resolution “anti-Russian and malevolent by nature.”
In October, 143 members voted in favor of Ukraine in the General Assembly, adopting a resolution that condemned Russia’s declaration of the annexation of four Ukrainian regions.
Resolutions of the assembly, unlike those passed by the Security Council, are not legally binding.
Hayashi asked the rest of the assembly’s 193 members to favor the resolution co-sponsored by Japan and Western countries. The legally nonbinding motion would put more pressure on Russia if adopted.
Referring to past U.N. General Assembly resolutions and an order by the International Court of Justice in March that made similar demands to Russia, Hayashi condemned Russia for neglecting them “as if they were just pieces of waste paper.”
The top Japanese diplomat also said other nations should “refrain from supporting the aggression either directly or indirectly,” bearing in mind nations such as Russian ally Belarus, and apparently China amid a U.S. allegation that Beijing is considering supplying weapons to Moscow.
As for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s blackmail of possible nuclear use in its former Soviet neighbor, Hayashi condemned Moscow as it “abuses” its status as a nuclear power “with its irresponsible rhetoric.”
“Russia’s nuclear threat, let alone any use of its nuclear weapons, shall never be tolerated,” he added.
Hayashi stressed that Tokyo will continue to support Kyiv, and underscored the necessity of reforms of the Security Council and other U.N. bodies, saying that the “damaged” United Nations is “now being tested.”
During his three-day stay in New York from Wednesday, Hayashi is slated to attend a ministerial gathering of the U.N. Security Council on Friday.
