World leaders 'unlikely' to meet at UN assembly as planned in September: Guterres

New York

THE Covid-19 pandemic makes it "unlikely" that world leaders and thousands of other participants will be able to gather in New York in September for the annual United Nations (UN) General Assembly, the UN's secretary-general Antonio Guterres has said.

In an interview with the French weekly magazine Paris-Match that was published on Thursday, he said he was looking at "various alternatives" made possible by digital technology, which he will present to member states.

Several UN envoys have already predicted that the meeting will end up being held by videoconference, especially as this year marks the 75th anniversary of the world body.

This year, "the procedures are certainly going to be atypical, hybrid, different" and "much lighter in terms of a physical presence", one ambassador said on condition of anonymity.

The diplomat said he does not see how the UN can organise an "enormous mass gathering in Manhattan" at a time when the virus will not have been eradicated.

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Since mid-March - because of the pandemic and the anti-virus lockdown measures in place in New York, the epicentre of the US outbreak - UN employees and diplomats have worked from home.

The UN headquarters building technically remains open but very few people are working there, and both the Security Council and the General Assembly are meeting by videoconference.

Those working conditions have been extended at least until the end of June.

The start of the annual General Assembly is scheduled for Sept 15, with the session featuring speeches from dozens of world leaders due to begin on Sept 22.

The meeting - the largest annual diplomatic gathering in the world - features hundreds of events on the sidelines in New York, as well as thousands of bilateral and multilateral meetings.

It has never been cancelled since the UN's founding in 1945. It has been delayed twice - after the Sept 11 attacks in New York in 2001, and in 1964 due to a financial crisis within the organisation, and because several members were facing the loss of their voting rights.

But the Sept 18, 1961 death of then-UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia) - which remains unsolved - did not spark any postponement. AFP