MOSCOW, May 19 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) should not be used as a puck to settle political accounts, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Tuesday.
"The WHO should not become a puck to be passed back and forth pursuing goals other than those of building most efficient international cooperation against the pandemic," TASS news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying at a meeting with Russian lawmakers.
Ryabkov said that Russia is against politicizing everything related to the spread of the coronavirus and is in favor of finding ways that would allow us to advance toward a more effective solution to the problems associated with the pandemic, to consolidate the role of the WHO and to prevent its weakening.
Unfortunately, these areas are not among priorities for the United States and a number of its closest allies, he said.
Ryabkov said that Moscow does not see any reason not to trust "the information and the methods that were used and disseminated as WHO information from Chinese colleagues."
U.S. President Donald Trump has sent a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in which he threatened to stop financing it and reconsider U.S. membership unless WHO commits to "substantive improvements" within 30 days.
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