Leaders convene at UN as world convulses in war

World leaders begin convening on Monday at one of the most volatile moments in the United Nations’ 80-year history.

The challenges they face are as dire as ever if not more so – unyielding wars in Gaza and Ukraine, escalating changes in the US approach to the world, hungry people everywhere and technologies that are advancing faster than the understanding of how to manage them.

The United Nations, which emerged from the rubble of the Second World War on the premise that nations would work together to tackle political, social and financial issues, is in crisis itself.

As secretary-general Antonio Guterres said last week: “International co-operation is straining under pressures unseen in our lifetimes.”

Yet the annual high-level gathering at the UN General Assembly will bring presidents, prime ministers and monarchs from about 150 of the 193 UN member nations to UN headquarters in New York.

The secretary-general says it is an opportunity that cannot be missed, even in the most challenging of moments.

“We are gathering in turbulent, even uncharted, waters,” Mr Guterres said.

He pointed to, among other spectres, “our planet overheating, new technologies racing ahead without guardrails, inequalities widening by the hour”.

At the opening commemoration of this year’s 80th anniversary of the United Nations, General Assembly president Annaleena Baerbock said the world is at a crossroads as it was after the Second World War, and courage is needed “to show the world that we can be better together”.

“Today,” she said, “is not about celebrating.”

Mr Guterres said he will use the more than 150 one-on-one meetings he has with leaders and ministers to urge that they speak to each other, bridge divides, reduce risks and find solutions.

He said leaders must make progress, not merely engage in “posturing and promises”.

But UN watchers say that in a deeply polarised world, with no prospects of ceasefires in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, whether the high-level meeting makes any progress remains a big question mark.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, has said that “Palestine is going to be the huge elephant in this session of the General Assembly”.

It will be front and centre on Monday at a high-level meeting co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia on implementing a two-state solution to the nearly eight-decade Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The spotlight will be even brighter because the Trump administration refused to give a US visa to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to speak at that meeting and the General Assembly.

On Friday, the General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution enabling Mr Abbas to speak by video, as it did in 2022 for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after Russia’s invasion.

This year Mr Zelensky will be attending in person, and the Security Council is expected to meet on Ukraine on Tuesday.

The assembly voted overwhelmingly earlier this month to support a two-state solution and urge Israel to commit to a Palestinian state.

Hours before that vote, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “there will be no Palestinian state”.