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Biden warns UN against allowing Russia to ‘brutalize’ Ukraine without consequence - live | United Nations | The Guardian
Biden warns against allowing Russia to 'brutalize' Ukraine without consequences
Biden says the UN gathering this week is “darkened by the shadow of war”, which he describes as an “illegal war of conquest without provocation by Russia” against Ukraine.
No nation wants the war to end more than Ukraine, he says, reiterating US support for Kyiv and its efforst to bring about “a diplomatic resolution to a just and lasting peace”.
He says Russia along bears the responsibility of the war in Ukraine, and that it alone has the power to end the war immediately.
Russia alone stands in the way of peace because Russia’s price for peace is Ukraine’s capitulation, Ukraine’s territory. Russia will grow weary, allowed to brutalize Ukraine without consequence.
But ask you this: if we abandon the core principles of United States to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that there are protected if you allow Ukraine to be carved up? Is the independence of any nation security?
Biden says the US will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity and freedom.
Turkey's Erdoğan pledges to step up efforts to end Ukraine war 'through diplomacy and dialogue'
Erdoğan says the UN’s security council has ceased to be a guarantor of world security, instead becoming “a battleground for the political strategies” of its five permanent members. “The world is bigger than five,” he says.
The Turkish leader says that Ankara has endeavored to keep Russia and Ukraine around the table since the beginning of the war, adding that “the war will have no winners”.
We will step up our efforts to end the war through diplomacy and dialogue on the basis of Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity.
Erdoğan warns that the failure to implement the Black Sea Grain initiative has “left the world facing new crisis”, but that Turkey has a new plan whereby another one million tonnes of grain will be released to countries in dire need.
Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan addresses the 78th Session of the U.N. General Assembly. Photograph: Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, warns that the world is facing “increasingly complex and dangerous challenges” on a global scale, and that it is not possible to draw a more optimistic picture of the future compared to last year.
There are conflicts, wars, humanitarian crises, political strife and social tensions to the south, north east and west of my own country.
He says terrorism, which is “used as an instrument of proxy wars” in Syria, north Africa, and the Sahel region, is causing “irreparable damage to the increasingly fragile international security climate”, while signs of xenophobia, racism and Islamophobia have reached “alarming” levels in the past year.
Erdoğan says that climate change and related natural disaster have become a reality of our daily lives no matter what corner of the world we are in, citing the February 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people. He thanks the international community for its support during the aftermath of the earthquake.
Biden pledges to 'lead by example' on nuclear arms control
Julian Borger
Joe Biden has accused Russia of “shredding longstanding arms control agreements” but pledged that the US would “lead by example” in limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
In his address to the UN general assembly, Biden castigated the Putin regime for its suspension, in February this year, of the 2010 New Start treaty, the last arms control agreement between the two countries.
That suspension, coupled with Russia’s withdrawal from the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty in 2007, was “irresponsible and makes the entire world less safe”, the president said.
However, Biden insisted that the US “is going to continue to pursue good faith efforts to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction and lead by example, no matter what else is happening in the world”.
The statement appeared to be a confirmation that the US would continue the policy it has pursued since Vladimir Putin’s suspension of New Start, by not going beyond the treaty’s limits of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads, and 700 deployed delivery systems.
At the time of Moscow’s suspension of the New Start treaty, Russian officials said their government would continue to observe those limits, but there have been no inspections of Russian nuclear weapons facilities since the start of the Covid pandemic, and Russia has ceased to share data that was required by the agreement.
In his speech, Biden said the US also remained committed to diplomatic means to contain North Korean’s nuclear weapons programme and would “remain steadfast in our commitment that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons”.
Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association, welcomed Biden’s statement on the New Start limits.
“I’m glad that Biden said this to keep the flame going, if you think about how you don’t have much room in a UN speech,” Kimball said.
It’s a positive signal that the United States remains ready to engage in serious dialogue on nuclear weapons production and arms control despite whatever else has happened in the Russian relationship.
In his address, Biden urged the UN general assembly to uphold the UN charter in its approach to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, framing it as a matter of principle, national sovereignty and territorial integrity that was essential to all UN members.
“Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalise Ukraine without consequence,” Biden said.
But I ask you this: If we abandon the core principles … to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that they are protected? If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?
“I respectfully suggest the answer is no,” the president added.
We must stand up to this naked aggression today to deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow.
Much of the rest of Biden’s speech was dedicated to the principles of global cooperation to take on basic issues of poverty, human rights and the climate crisis. The US and other supporters of Ukraine are well aware that many countries at the UN, especially the developing nations in the Group of 77, are becoming restive at the focus on Ukraine, when the death toll from conflict, famine and climate change is so enormous in the global south. Biden stressed that he takes these concerns seriously.
“My country has to meet this critical moment to work with countries in every region, in common cause to join together with partners who share a common vision of the future of the world,” he said.
The United States seeks a more secure, more prosperous, more equitable world for all people, because we know our future is bound up with yours … No nation can meet the challenges of today alone.
Poland says US played 'pivotal role' in ensuring European security for more than a century
Duda warned that the world is about to “discover the scale of manipulation and disinformation” by Russia in its effort to “justify Russian crimes on the civilian population” and to shape international public opinion “by building a false vision of the reality”.
The international community must confront manipulation and disinformation and fight against the “hypocrisy of history”, he said.
What is evil should be called evil. A crime should be called a crime.
Duda said the US has played a “pivotal role” in ensuring security in Europe for more than a century, adding that the commitment of the US is essential for European security.
It is too often that Europe tends to forget that it owes its security and prosperity to the US commitment and presence. The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, addresses the 78th United Nations general assembly in New York City. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images
Poland's Duda warns world cannot allow Ukraine to become a 'frozen war'
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda,used his speech to call on “courageous and visionary” leaders to stand against the “imperial policy” of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Russia’s full-scale aggression on Ukraine has led to “immense global problems” in its aftermath and tested the international world order, he said.
World peace has never been as threatened as it is today.
He cited Poland’s history of being invaded by Nazi Germany in September 1939 as why Warsaw “understands the tragedy of Ukraine better than any other country in the world”.
For the first time in a long time, Russians have shown the face we have known for hundreds of years. They believed that the nations around them should be subjected to them. We say no.
Russia believes that the old days of the empire that collapsed less than 20 years ago, that domination will again be a feature of our region. Well, it will not. Those days are over once and for all.
Duda said the “brutal” war in Ukraine must end and that it cannot be “converted into a frozen war … This can only be done by restoring the full territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.”
He said Poland is engaged in initiatives to hold Russia accountable for violations of fundamental norms of international law, and that it “strongly” supports the work of the international criminal court and the international court of justice.
Jordan’s King Abdullah, during his speech, received applause as he warned that the region would continue to suffer until the world helps to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – “the central issue in the Middle East”. He said:
No architecture for regional security and development can stand over the burning ashes of this conflict.
He questioned why the international community was not supporting Palestinians as Israel continues to expand its illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
Where is the global solidarity to make UN resolutions believable by people in need of our help? King of Jordan Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein addresses world leaders during the United Nations general assembly. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The issue of the US opioid crisis was brought home over the weekend in New York City when one-year-oldNicholas Dominici died from a toxic opioid exposure while attending a daycare center in the Bronx.
A package containing several thousand dollars’ worth of fentanyl was later discovered inside the center where a pair of two-year-old boys and an eight-month-old girl were poisoned by the drug.
Fentanyl residue was found underneath a mat where the children had napped, the New York police department’s chief of detectives, Joseph Kenny, said at a news conference. The operator of the home-based Divino Niño center and another man who lived there have pleaded not guilty to murder charges.
“We’re not going to allow this incident to take place and ignore this as just another day, another tragedy in the city,” New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, said at the news conference. Adams said that it was “just total madness” that a daycare was being used to process drugs.
At the UN, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also referred to Dominici’s death.
This is the day-in, day-out story in the United States.
In an appeal for international cooperation, he warned his international listeners that the US experience was coming their way.
I just want to tell you, because we’ve lived it, we’re experiencing it here in this country, this is coming.
US diplomats at the UN general assembly in New York have unveiled steps aimed at tackling the proliferation of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs which the American secretary of state, Antony Blinken, described as a “global threat”.
At a meeting Monday, the most senior US diplomat announced the formation of an international coalition to address the crisis, saying that the US “may have been to some extent a canary in the coalmine when it comes to fentanyl, but alas, we are not alone”.
Blinken pointed to fentanyl and other synthetic drugs as the number-one killer of Americans aged 18 to 49. The US recorded 110,000 overdose deaths last year, with more than two-thirds linked to the synthetic opioid.
He noted that the issue of synthetic drugs – which can be created in a room no larger the stage he was on – was different from the plant-based drug trade that preceded it. That’s because the plant-based trade took “a pretty large-scale enterprise in order to cultivate the crops, bring them to market”.
Blinken said the problem was global in reach, with criminal organizations “exploiting gaps in interconnected systems to bring new drugs to new places in new ways”. Blinken pointed to tramadol in Africa, to fake Captagon pills in the Middle East and to ketamine as well as amphetamines in Asia.
“This crisis has an immeasurable cost,” Blinken said.
It has devastated families. It’s devastated communities. It’s also been overwhelming to our public health and criminal justice systems.
The diplomat said the US will name an envoy on the issue, introduce a resolution highlighting the global health and security threat of synthetic drugs, and – alongside the UN office on drugs and crime – partner with tech companies to deny traffickers access to online platforms used to market synthetic drugs. He said:
I have to tell you that as the parent of young children, I’m terrified – terrified at the prospect that they will encounter what seems to be an innocent little pill and that in its small size, has death written all over it. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, Monday, in New York. Photograph: Julia Nikhinson/AP
The Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva staked his claim to be the true leader of the Global South, telling the UN that market liberalism has plagued democracy and disenfranchised millions, leaving them in poverty and prey to nationalist totalitarianism.
He said “the 10 richest billionaires have more wealth than the poorest 40% of humanity,” adding there’s a lack of political will from those who govern the world “in order to overcome inequality”.
He made no direct criticism of the Russian president Vladimir Putin but said the UN was losing credibility and blamed this frailty on “the specific result of actions from its permanent members who wage unauthorised wars aimed at territorial expansion or regime change. Its paralysis is the most eloquent proof of the urgent need to reform it.”
Although he did not draw the explicit comparison, his remarks left open the assumption that the Russian invasion of Ukraine bore comparison to the US invasion of Iraq. He also questioned why so much was being spent on arms and so little on climate change.
Lula’s leadership has come under criticism for saying he would welcome Putin to Brazil, questioning the role of the international criminal court and also failing to meet the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an omission he is due to rectify in New York on Wednesday.
Setting out what he said would be Brazil’s agenda for its upcoming G20 presidency, he offered a vision that was explicitly more socialist than the one provided by Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister and current G20 chair. He said hunger today affected 735 million human beings, who go to sleep without knowing what they will eat tomorrow. The world was becoming more unequal every day.
He said governments needed to break away from the increasing dissonance between the voice of the markets and the voice of the streets. “Neoliberalism has aggravated the economic and political inequality that plagues democracies today. Its legacy is a mass of disenfranchised and excluded people”. He said:
Rich countries grew based on a model with high rates of climate damaging gas emissions. The climate emergency makes it urgent to correct course and implement what has already been agreed. There is no other reason why we speak of common but differentiated responsibilities. It is the vulnerable populations in the global south who are most affected by the loss and damage caused by climate change. The richest 10% of the world’s population are responsible for almost half of all carbon released into the atmosphere. We developing countries do not want to repeat this model.
Amid reports that Brazil will tighten its own green house gas emissions, he said already the Amazon was speaking for itself, and over the past eight months had been cut deforestation by 48%.
He defended the recent expansion of the Brics group saying it was the result of multilateral paralysis. He predicted the expanded grouping would be a force that works towards fairer global trade challenging rich countries’ protectionism.
He complained that last year the IMF made available $160bn in special drawing rights to European countries, and just $34bn to African countries. The unequal and distributed representation of the management of the IMF and the World Bank was unacceptable, he said.
US only permanent security council member to attend UN general assembly
For the first time in years, US president Joe Biden is the sole leader of the UN security council’s five permanent members to attend the UN general assembly this week. The leaders of China, Russia, India, France, and the UK have all decided to skip the gathering.
The UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is the first British leader in a decade to avoid attending the gathering. The reason given was his busy schedule, but the Guardian has previously reported that turning up risked severe embarrassment for the prime minister.
French president Emmanuel Macron, who attended last year, opted out to host Britain’s King Charles in Paris.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has an arrest warrant issued by the international criminal court for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. China’s president Xi Jinping rarely attends the UN general assembly gathering in person.
In addition, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, who led a recent regional summit and travelled recently to China, is also not attending.
Away from the conference the UK foreign secretary James Cleverly confirmed the UK had invited China to attend its novel AI summit in November despite reports that China had managed to insert spies into the UK parliament.
He said:
We cannot keep the UK public safe from the risks of AI if we exclude one of the leading nations in AI tech. That’s why China has been invited to our AI Safety Summit in November. The UK’s approach to China is to protect our institutions and infrastructure, align with partners and engage where it is in the UK’s national interest.
The Foreign Office said China is a global AI power and home to several major AI labs, including the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI). The primary goal of the Summit is to generate international consensus on the safety risks posed by frontier AI, and a common desire to address them. The AI Summit are engaging with a range of countries including China to determine the precise nature of their participation in the Summit.
It is expected the UN secretary general António Guterres will also attend. He is launching an initiative of his own to see if the UN can act as some kind of global regulator or adviser.
France calls for emergency UN security council meeting over Azerbaijani military operation
Patrick Wintour
France called for an emergency meeting of the UN security council over the launch by Azerbaijan of a military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
It said:
No pretext can justify such unilateral action, which threatens thousands of civilians already affected by months of illegal blockade and goes against the efforts of the international community to reach a negotiated settlement”.
It condemned “the use of heavy weapons, including against inhabited areas”.
Calling on Azerbaijan to immediately cease its offensive and return to respect for international law France said it “will hold Azerbaijan solely responsible for the fate of the civilian populations of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Biden warns against allowing Russia to 'brutalize' Ukraine without consequences
Biden says the UN gathering this week is “darkened by the shadow of war”, which he describes as an “illegal war of conquest without provocation by Russia” against Ukraine.
No nation wants the war to end more than Ukraine, he says, reiterating US support for Kyiv and its efforst to bring about “a diplomatic resolution to a just and lasting peace”.
He says Russia along bears the responsibility of the war in Ukraine, and that it alone has the power to end the war immediately.
Russia alone stands in the way of peace because Russia’s price for peace is Ukraine’s capitulation, Ukraine’s territory. Russia will grow weary, allowed to brutalize Ukraine without consequence.
But ask you this: if we abandon the core principles of United States to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that there are protected if you allow Ukraine to be carved up? Is the independence of any nation security?
Biden says the US will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity and freedom.
Biden says the US is committed to sustaining the institutions built at the end of the second world war that are “an enduring bedrock” of the world’s progress.
He says the US is undertaking “serious consultations” with many member states over expanding the UN security council, adding that “we need more voices, more perspectives at the table”.
The UN must “continue to preserve peace, prevent conflict and alleviate human suffering”, Biden says.
He says the US is working to make global institutions such as the World Bank to become more responsive, effective and inclusive. The US will also continue its efforts to reform the World Trade Organization to preserve competition, openness, transparency and the rule of law while also protecting workers, driving the clean energy transition, and promoting inclusive and sustainable growth.
Biden says the G20 has been strengthened as a “vital forum”, citing welcoming the African Union as a permanent member.
Biden says the US seeks “a more secure, more prosperous and equitable world for all people” because its future is bound with the rest of the world.
No country can meet the challenges of today alone.
He describes that vision as one where “our children do not go hungry and everyone has access to quality health care, where workers are empowered and our environment is protected, where entrepreneurs and innovators everywhere can access opportunity everywhere”.