{"id":8922,"date":"2024-09-25T17:24:11","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T21:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8922"},"modified":"2024-09-25T17:24:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T21:24:11","slug":"un-chief-criticizes-divided-security-council-for-failure-of-leadership-to-end-wars-calls-for-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8922","title":{"rendered":"UN Chief Criticizes Divided Security Council for Failure of Leadership to End Wars, Calls for Unity"},"content":{"rendered":"
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The United Nations chief sharply criticized the powerful but deeply divided Security Council at a high-level meeting Wednesday for a failure of leadership to end wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeace demands action. And peace demands leadership,\u201d Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the 15-member council charged with ensuring international peace and security. \u201cInstead, we\u2019re seeing deepening geopolitical divisions and mistrust.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pointed to repeated violations of the U.N. Charter and international law, conflicts multiplying and becoming more deadly, and civilians paying the steepest price.<\/p>\n

The council has been blocked from any action on Ukraine because Russia is a veto-wielding member and a party to the conflict \u2013 invading its neighbor in violation of the U.N. Charter which requires all members to ensure the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all other nations.<\/p>\n

It has been stymied in taking tough action on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza because of Israel\u2019s close ally, the United States, another veto-wielding member. And in Sudan, there are divisions among some members supporting the warring rival generals.<\/p>\n

The secretary-general said peace is possible in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan if council members unite and follow the U.N. Charter and international law.<\/p>\n

\u201cA divided council cannot,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is imperative that council members spare no effort to work together to find common ground\u201d as it has done overseeing 11 peacekeeping operations on three continents and authorizing humanitarian aid to global hotspots.<\/p>\n

Slovenia, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, chose the topic, \u201cLeadership for Peace\u201d for its signature event during the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly \u2013 and invited leaders from the 15 council nations to attend.<\/p>\n

The advance speakers list has five presidents and prime ministers, six foreign ministers, a deputy foreign minister, a vice foreign minister, the U.S. ambassador, who is also listed as a member of President Joe Biden\u2019s Cabinet, and a Russian representative.<\/p>\n

At the same time as the council was meeting, Biden was appearing on \u201cThe View,\u201d a popular daytime talk show, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken\u2019s schedule said he was scheduled to attend a meeting of the Group of 20 major economic powers soon after.<\/p>\n

Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which works in the world\u2019s crisis areas, called for a renewed respect for international humanitarian law. \u201cWars can be fought and won while adhering to the letter and the spirit of the law,\u201d she told the council.<\/p>\n

Spoljaric said the Red Cross today sees warring parties overlooking their international humanitarian law obligations \u201cto justify violations, destruction and impediments to humanitarian action.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Edith M. Lederer and Michael Weissenstein, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Nations chief sharply criticized the powerful but deeply divided Security Council at a high-level meeting Wednesday for a failure of leadership to end wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and beyond. \u201cPeace demands action. And peace demands leadership,\u201d Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the 15-member council charged with ensuring international peace and security. \u201cInstead, we\u2019re…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":8923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/6cb9932\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4188x2791+0+1\/resize\/980x653!\/format\/webp\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2Fc8%2F6d%2F574f9654a043d80acf53a8dcb4af%2F2f0b536147624a1a8ed678345550f6ba","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-public-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8924,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8922\/revisions\/8924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}