US President Joe Biden on Tuesday called for an end to the conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan as he delivered the final address to the UN General Assembly of his career. UN Secretary-General Guterres, in his opening remarks earlier on Tuesday, warned that impunity, inequality and uncertainty are deepening geopolitical divisions and creating an “unsustainable world".
In his last address at the UN General Assembly, US President Joe Biden reiterated his call for a ceasefire in Gaza as Israel’s bloody operation against Hamas in Gaza neared the one-year mark while warning against a “full-scale” war in Lebanon.
"Full-scale war is not in anyone's interest," Biden told the UN General Assembly after Israeli strikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah killed at least 569 people.
Biden’s appearance before the international body also offered him one of his last high-profile opportunities as president to make the case to keep up robust support for Ukraine, which could be in doubt if former President Donald Trump, who has scoffed at the cost of the war, defeats Vice President Kamala Harris in November. Still, Biden insisted that despite global conflicts, he remains hopeful for the future.
Urging countries to stop arming rival generals in Sudan, Biden also used his wide-ranging address to call for an end to the civil war there that has triggered a major humanitarian crisis.
Biden’s words echoed those of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who earlier on Tuesday warned world leaders that impunity, inequality and uncertainty are creating an “unsustainable world" where a growing number of countries believe they should have a “get out of jail free” card.
“We can't go on like this,” he said as the General Assembly’s annual debate among presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and other leaders began.
'Powder keg'
Citing deepening geopolitical divisions, wars with no end in sight, climate change and nuclear and emerging weapons, he said humanity is “edging towards the unimaginable – a powder keg that risks engulfing the world”.
But, he said, “the challenges we face are solvable” if the international community confronts the uncertainty of unmanaged risks, the inequality that underlies injustices and grievances and the impunity that undermines international law and the UN's founding principles.
“Today, a growing number of governments and others feel entitled to a "get out of jail free’ card," he said in a reference to the classic board game Monopoly.
The world leaders' meeting opened under the shadow of increasing global divisions, major wars in Gaza, Ukraine and, Sudan and the threat of an even larger conflict in the wider Middle East.
Guterres previewed his opening speech at Sunday’s "Summit of the Future," where he pointed to conflicts from the Middle East to Ukraine and Sudan and to the global security system, which he said is “threatened by geopolitical divides, nuclear posturing, and the development of new weapons and theatres of war.”
He also cited huge inequalities, the lack of an effective global system to respond to emerging and even existential threats, and the devastating impact of climate change.
Roster of speakers
Other speakers scheduled for Tuesday's opening day session included Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened his address to the General Assembly with a call for the world to do more to combat climate change, mentioning the fires ravaging the Brazilian rainforest back home
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told the Assembly that the values of the United Nations system and the Western world are dying in Gaza as the conflict continues there, calling for an "alliance of humanity" to stop Israel.
"Along with children in Gaza, the United Nations system is also dying, the truth is dying, the values that the West claims to defend are dying, the hopes of humanity to live in a fairer world are dying one by one," he said.
International Rescue Committee President David Miliband recalled that at the San Francisco conference in 1945 where the UN was established, then-US President Harry Truman pleaded with delegates to reject the premise that “might makes right” and reverse it to “right makes might," which was enshrined in the UN Charter.
“Almost 80 years later, we have seen the terrible consequences of the failure to flip this equation,” Miliband said. “In contexts like Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, might is making right.”
Facing mounting global humanitarian needs, unchecked conflict, unmitigated climate change and growing extreme poverty, Miliband challenged world leaders asking: “How will you strengthen, not weaken, the principles of the UN Charter for the next 80 years?”
'Pact for the future'
The assembly’s annual meeting, which ends on Sept. 30, followed the two-day Summit of the Future, which adopted a blueprint aimed at bringing the world’s increasing divided nations together to tackle the challenges of the 21st century from conflicts and climate change to artificial intelligence and women's rights.
The 42-page “Pact for the Future” challenges leaders of the 193 UN member nations to turn promises into real actions that make a difference to the lives of the world’s more than 8 billion people.
“We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink,” Guterres said.
By adopting the pact, leaders unlocked the door, he said. “Now it is our common destiny to walk through it. That demands not just agreement, but action.”
At last year’s UN global gathering, Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, took centre stage. But as the first anniversary of Hamas’s deadly attack in southern Israel approaches on Oct. 7, the spotlight is certain to be on the war in Gaza and escalating violence across the Israeli-Lebanon border, which is now threatening to spread to the wider Middle East.
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to speak Thursday morning and Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday afternoon.
Zelensky will get the spotlight twice. He will speak Tuesday afternoon at a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council called by the United States, France, Japan, Malta, South Korea and Britain, whose foreign ministers are expected to attend. He will also address the General Assembly on Wednesday morning.
(FRANCE 24 with AP, Reuters)
