MOSCOW: Russia considers its suspension from the UN Human Rights Council to be “illegal”, the foreign ministry in Moscow said Thursday.
Russia considers the vote to suspend it, taken by the UN General Assembly earlier Thursday, to be “illegal and politically motivated, aimed at ostentatiously punishing a sovereign UN member state that pursues an independent domestic and foreign policy”, the foreign ministry said.
The Russian ministry has therefore decided on an “early termination” of its seat on the rights council.
“Unfortunately, under the current conditions, the Council is practically monopolised by a group of states that use it for their own opportunistic purposes,” the ministry added.
It was the second ever suspension of a country from the council. Libya was the first, in 2011.
Moscow has been an intermittent member of the rights council since 2006.