Sudan has called on the United Nations to take effective institutional and legal measures to ensure that the United States, in its capacity as the host country, complies with the provisions of the 1947 Headquarters Agreement.
The demand follows the failure to issue an entry visa to President of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, which prevented him from participating in the high-level meetings of the United Nations General Assembly last September.
Minister Plenipotentiary Ammar Mohamed Mahmoud, Sudan’s representative to the Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly, made the remarks in a statement delivered on Friday during discussions under Agenda Item 165, concerning the report of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country.
He noted that the UN Secretary-General had previously expressed concern over the failure to issue the visa and urged the host country to fulfil its obligations under the Headquarters Agreement. However, these efforts did not succeed in securing the Sovereignty Council President’s participation.
Ammar stressed that hosting the United Nations headquarters is an international legal responsibility, not a privilege that allows the host country to determine who is entitled to participate in the organization’s proceedings.
He emphasized that political considerations or the nature of bilateral relations do not exempt the host country from its legal obligations.
He called for the incident to be formally documented, for the relevant correspondence to be circulated among member states, and for guarantees to be established to prevent a recurrence.
He also urged the Secretary-General to seriously consider activating the dispute settlement mechanism stipulated in Section 21 of the Headquarters Agreement, in accordance with General Assembly Resolution 80/172.
The Sudanese representative concluded his statement by reaffirming that access to the United Nations headquarters is a right guaranteed to all member states under international law, not a privilege that the host country may grant or withhold according to its political considerations.
