For the first time in the 75-year history of the United Nations world leaders will not be coming to New York for their annual gathering in late September.
The president of the U.N. General Assembly in an address confirmed the news saying that the step was taken because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the world.
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Tijjani Muhammad-Bande said that he hopes to announce in the next two weeks how the 193 heads of state and government will give their speeches on pressing local and world issues during the assembly’s so-called General Debate.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recommended last month that the gathering of world leaders, which was supposed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, be dramatically scaled back because of the pandemic.
Guterres suggested in a letter to the General Assembly president that heads of state and government deliver prerecorded messages instead, with only one New York-based diplomat from each of the 193 U.N. member nations present in the assembly hall.
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Muhammad-Bande said that by late September “maybe a hundred or so” people might be allowed in the General Assembly chamber.
The meeting of world leaders usually brings thousands of government officials, diplomats and civil society representatives to New York for over a week of speeches, dinners, receptions, one-on-one meetings and hundreds of side events.
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