Turkey-chaired congress averts postal union's closure

GENEVA

An extraordinary congress of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) chaired by Turkey saved the union from "certain" dissolution, a Turkish official said on Sunday

The congress of UPU, a UN agency, was held last week in Geneva, where fees in the global postal services sector were discussed.

UPU survived its most tense period in history, as the U.S. threatened to leave due to the fee rate of posts coming from China.

Kenan Bozgeyik, chairman of the UPU Council of Administration and director general of Turkey's state-run postal service, told Anadolu Agency that under Ankara's chairmanship, the congress ended in success.

Bozgeyik said UPU was "certainly" about to dissolve with the U.S. threatening to leave the union, which he said it would had no consensus been reached at the congress.

"We fought hard to overcome these problems at UPU and the sector. We're having great success with the support of our government and president," he said.

The agreement reached at the congress was seen largely to prevent looming chaos in the global postal system.

* Writing by Fatih Hafiz Mehmet in Ankara