2023-09-20 11:50:29
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of perpetrating “genocide” and using food and energy as a weapon on Tuesday at the UN forum, in a speech in which he warned skeptical developing countries of how much that they have to win with a Kiev victory. Zelensky, dressed in khaki, reiterated an invitation to world leaders to join a “Peace Summit” and end the war of aggression.
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“For the first time in modern history, we have the opportunity to end aggression on the terms of the attacked nation,” Zelensky said in a speech met with applause led by Western nations, but with many empty seats.
“This is a real opportunity for all nations: to guarantee that aggression against their State, if it occurs, God forbid, ends, not because their land is divided,” he said, but with sovereignty defended.
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Likewise, the Ukrainian leader accused Vladimir Putin of perpetrating “a genocide” with the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, where “they are taught to hate Ukraine and all ties with their families are broken. And this is clearly a genocide,” he concluded.
Zelensky also stated that Russia – a permanent member of the Security Council – cannot be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. “Terrorists have no right to possess nuclear weapons,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses the 78th United Nations General Assembly at UN Headquarters in New York City on September 19, 2023. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
/ TIMOTHY A. CLARY
The Ukrainian president will participate this Wednesday in a high-level session of the UN Security Council.
On the same platform, US President Joe Biden, using the same message as Zelensky, made it clear that he will remain on the side of the attacked country.
“Russia believes that the world is going to get tired and they are going to let them destroy Ukraine without consequences,” Biden said, before warning that if “we let Ukraine be dismembered” the same thing could happen to other countries.
Ukraine has always found great support in the General Assembly, with the approval by a large majority of several resolutions, given the impossibility of doing so in the Security Council due to the veto of Russia, one of the five permanent members.
But in a fragmented world beset by conflicts in various parts of the world and crises – covid-19, climate, migration, poverty, inequality or the high cost of living – many developing countries want to turn the page, and advocate for a negotiated peace. .
“Dialogue”
One of them was the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who called for “dialogue” to resolve the Ukrainian conflict, which shows the “collective inability to enforce the objectives and principles of the United Nations Charter.”
“We do not underestimate the difficulties of achieving peace,” Lula said, but “no solution will be lasting without dialogue.”
On Wednesday, Lula will try to smooth things over in a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, whom he accused last year in an interview of being “as responsible as (Russian President Vladimir) Putin” for the war, and who refused, now as president, to supply weapons to Ukraine as other Western countries have done. The Brazilian president later softened his speech and offered to mediate the conflict.
His Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also advocated “dialogue” on the “basis of the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
“New contract”
Ukraine is one of many crises, although many have worsened in the last year and a half of conflict, in an increasingly multipolar and unequal world. The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, called for “determination” from leaders and “spirit of state” and not “games and blockades” to improve the lives of the most vulnerable on the planet.
The catastrophe in the Libyan city of Derna is a “sad snapshot” of a world haunted by injustice and the “inability to cope” with the “existential crises” that the planet is experiencing.
To this end, he called for a reform of multilateral institutions that reflect the current situation and complexity of the 21st century. “We cannot effectively address problems as they are if institutions do not reflect the world as it is,” he said.
A request supported by other leaders, such as the Argentine Alberto Fernández – who demanded a new framework for the treatment of sovereign debts that focuses on development with social justice – or the Cuban, Miguel Díaz-Canel, who presides over the G77 + China ( a bloc that brings together 134 countries), which advocated for “a new world contract” that is more “fair.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro proposed debt swap policies for developing countries for climate action.
For many, this would allow them to focus on achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that by 2030 aim to eliminate poverty, access education, drinking water, clean energy, have good health, fight climate change or achieve peaceful societies, which are interrelated with each other.
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