Russia coordinates with China on support of candidates for UN chief — senior diplomat

MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/. Russia and China are in close coordination on support of candidates to the post of UN Secretary-General, Kirill Logvinov, director of the Department of International Organizations at the Russian Foreign Ministry, wrote in a column for TASS. "It’s an open secret that, at this stage, Russia has no preference for candidates. This is mostly because the nomination process is ongoing. The important thing today and in the next few months is to make Russia’s principled position on the activity of a future Secretary-General of the organization clear to the current and future candidates. And we coordinate closely with our Chinese partners here," the senior Russian diplomat explained. Moscow and Beijing are explaining their rationale regarding candidates in detail to other countries, including CIS and BRICS members, Logvinov continued. "The challenge is to build a wide coalition of supporters from the global majority who realize that restoring the role of the UN as a key mechanism of multilateral diplomacy or effectively adapting the global organization to changing geopolitical realities requires an overhaul of its Secretariat," he stressed.