Upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter through effective multilateralism - Security Council, 9421st meeting.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
17:56 - Start of Meeting
After Break Watch Here: [ Ссылка ]
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Secretary-General António Guterres today (20 Sep) told the Security Council that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “is aggravating geopolitical tensions and divisions, threatening regional stability, increasing the nuclear threat, and creating deep fissures in our increasingly multipolar world.”
Addressing a High-Level meeting on Upholding the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter through Effective Multilateralism, Guterres said, “we deeply regret that Russia ended its participation in the Black Sea Initiative in July of this year. And that, immediately upon leaving, Russia launched a bombardment of Ukrainian ports and grain storage facilities on the Black Sea and the Danube River.”
He stressed that “attacks against terminals and grain stores are unacceptable and such assaults must end.”
The Secretary-General urged “all countries to do their part to prevent further escalation, and to lay the foundations for sustainable peace.”
He said the United Nations “are fully committed to the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, within its internationally recognized borders.”
Guterres said, “this war is already causing limitless suffering. Its continuation risks further perilous escalation. There is never an alternative to dialogue, diplomacy, and a just peace.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, “Russia has killed at least tens of thousands of our people and turned millions into refugees by destroying their homes. Most of the world recognizes the truth about this war. It is a criminal and unprovoked aggression by Russia against our nation, aimed at seizing Ukraine's territory and resources.”
Zelenskyy said, “humankind no longer pins its hopes on the UN when it comes to the defence of the sovereign borders of nations. World leaders are seeking new platforms and alliances that could reduce the disastrous scope of problems, the problems that are met here within these walls with rhetoric, rather than real solutions with aspirations to compromise with killers.”
United States’ Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “in this war, there is an aggressor and there is a victim. One side is attacking the core principles of the UN Charter, the other tries to defend them.”
For over a year and a half, Blinken said, “Russia has shredded the major tenants of the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international humanitarian law and flaunted one Security Council resolution after another.”
He said, “President Putin is betting that if he keeps doubling down on the violence, that if he's willing to inflict enough suffering on enough people, the world will cave on its principles, and Ukraine will stop defending itself. But Ukrainians are not giving up for they seen what life would look like if they submit to Russian control.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for his part said, “the balance of needs which have been enshrined in the Charter since the collapse of the USSR and the establishment of independent states in its place, the US and its satellites have egregiously and openly interfered in the domestic affairs Ukraine, as was publicly and even with pride recognized by the Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in 2013.”
Lavrov said, “in our western opponents’ rhetoric, we hear slogans, invasion, aggression, annexation, not a word about the root causes of the problems, where they cultivated and encouraged openly Nazi regimes which openly rewrote the outcomes of the Second World War and the history of their own people.”
He said, “a substantive negotiation based on facts and respect for all of the requirements of the UN Charter, is something which the West has have has avoided.”
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High-level open debate aims to address the implications of Russia's aggression against Ukraine with regard to multilateralism based on international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, and to consider all the necessary collective efforts to reinforce the international rules-based order and strengthen multilateralism. At a time when the multilateral order based on the respect of international law is seriously challenged by a war of aggression, leaders are expected to come together and reiterate the importance of upholding the Charter to promote and defend effective multilateralism.
This meeting aims to invoke the need to work together to prevent future violations of international law and to promote the peaceful resolution of conflicts through diplomatic means and dialogue.
The high-level open debate will be chaired by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania, Edi Rama.
Screenshot Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías
