A. Rubio
The Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Zurab Pololikashvili, has called on the organisation’s member countries to “consider suspending the Russian Federation from membership, following UNWTO statutes”.
Pololikashvili, after finding that Russia is in breach of the organisation’s basic principles, is hardening his stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in recent days. On 19 February, as The Diplomat reported, he posted a message on the UNWTO website in which he expressed his wish that “diplomatic efforts will continue to avoid conflict”.
However, in the face of the fait accompli of Russian aggression, Pololikashvili posted a new message on his Twitter account yesterday, stressing that “Russia’s military aggression and breach of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity causes human suffering and threatens the whole world“.
After stating that “these actions contradict the fundamental aims of UNWTO”, Pololikashvili considers it his duty “to call on all member states to consider suspending the Russian Federation from membership, following UNWTO statutes”. This requires the backing of two-thirds of the organisation’s 160 member states.
In an earlier tweet, Pololikashvili, a Georgian national, makes no reference to the aggression his country suffered in 2008, but states that “today we are at a critical junction with our very future at stake” and adds that “we all are and should be Ukrainians. We must act against the breach of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
The Secretary General added that “I firmly support the people of Ukraine during these very difficult times”.
“I am alarmed to see the lives and security of many being put in peril by the unjustified aggression of a few” he adds in another tweet last 24 February, the day the invasion of Ukraine began.
“Have wars and violence not caused us enough suffering?”, he asks, before adding that “this man-made crisis must be solved through dialogue, not conflict. Step back. We cannot afford for this to continue”, he concludes.
This week, Pololikashvili led a UNWTO delegation on a visit to the Geneva-based multilateral organisations. In his meetings with the heads of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), he discussed, in addition to the measures needed to restore tourism after the pandemic, the situation created by the conflict in Ukraine, to which “diplomacy is the only response option”.
