Reuters World News - Speed dating for diplomats: An inside guide to the UN General Assembly

Episode Date: September 16, 2023

The UN General Assembly meets in New York this week with a backdrop of war and increasingly fragmented world. On this special episode, we talk to our journalists around the world about what to expect during the gathering, and whether this storied body can actually get anything accomplished. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. *The podcast was updated to correct the spelling of speed dating in the headline Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York, an emergency Sunday session of the United Nations Security Council. From its inception, the United Nations has sought to reduce global tensions through dialogue. But that dream has often been met with the cold, hard truth of geopolitics. Crisis hits the Security Council in New York, as the Persian problem rises towards a new climax. The UN General Assembly meets in New York with a backdrop of war and an increasingly fragmented world. It's also happening after the Earth experienced its hottest summer on record. As Secretary-General Antonio Guterres put it, the International Coalition is a family with big problems.

Because if we are indeed one global family, we today resemble a rather dysfunctional one. On this special episode, we talk to our journalists around the world about what to expect during the gathering and whether this storied body can actually get anything accomplished. I'm Kim Vinald in London. I'm Michelle Nichols at United Nations headquarters in New York. Michelle, so this year's anger, as those in the know like to call it,

is a return to the full scale event. Let's start with who's coming. We are expecting potentially a record number of heads of state and heads of government to be here. The latest figure I heard was more than 140, and that's out of a world body that has 193 members. So we're definitely back to sort of pre-COVID general assembly. A lot of celebrities are also sort of hanging around, I guess, on the sidelines. US President Joe Biden holds a welcome reception for leaders, and this year it's going to be held at the Met Museum, which a lot of people might know, particularly from the Met Gala that's held every May, big fashion event. The fashions may not be as good as the Met Gala,

but we're probably likely to see some pretty good national dress. What are some of the main topics we should expect they'll focus on? While we have a strong focus on Ukraine, we're going to see summits also being held on getting the Sustainable Development Goals back on track. That will be a big event on Wednesday hosted by the Secretary General. He has said in no uncertainty, in terms, that this is a no-nonsense climate summit and that you can only speak if you've got something new to announce. There's also several summits being held on health topics, pandemic preparedness, universal health care. And these summits, very important priorities for a lot of developing countries. So what we're seeing is Western diplomats sort of going

out of their way to say that while yes, the war in Ukraine is a big topic and it is going to be a big headline during Unger next week, that doesn't mean they can't focus also on these other important issues for the world. Exactly how to respond to these priorities, which are so important to developing countries, has become a growing source of geopolitical tension. And in this fight for the global south, it's the US against Russia and China. Don Dufi is our foreign policy editor in Washington, D.C. So in the past 10 years, China has really made this big push to convince the developing world that it is their natural partner among the big nations. And it's put hundreds of billions

of dollars of loans into regions like the Middle East, Africa, and South America for these big infrastructure projects. The U.S. and its allies are trying to catch up. They've made this commitment to raise $600 billion for their own rifle project. And what's interesting about Ungo is it's happening directly after the G20 and also the BRICS summit. So Bricks is this collection of developing world countries where China's one of the most dominant members, and they've recently expanded, tried to add additional members. At the G20, President Biden made this very explicit pitch to the developing world that the U.S. and its Western allies are really their best partner when it comes to sort of development programs. So you're going to start to see more

of this kind of thing happening at the UN General Assembly in a lot of these side meetings. What are some of the other points of tension that might crop up this week? It's unclear if the U.S. and China are actually going to meet directly during the General Assembly. But in the background, there is a whole range of issues. One of those is geopolitics. The U.S. is really concerned that China's getting more aggressive in Asia, especially, with threats toward Taiwan, and also in the economic sphere. The U.S. has really been pushing back strongly against China's efforts to become an advanced player in artificial intelligence and has imposed a number of export controls and investment

restrictions, which are really driving up tensions. It's also an open question whether China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, will even show up this year. So we're hearing that China's top diplomat is unlikely to come, that instead China's going to send a lower profile official, the vice president. It matters because U.S. officials had really been counting on him being there to meet with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to set the stage for higher level talks, which are really important for lowering U.S.-China tensions. It also raises this question of whether China is, again, downgrading its presence at a major international meeting. Xi Jinping had been expected to go to the G20 and wasn't there. And now at Unga, you have a lower

level official instead of the top diplomat. So Michelle, is this another sign that the UN is becoming increasingly irrelevant? Some diplomats have voiced to me the concern that sure the UN is becoming a little more irrelevant. It's not sort of involved in trying to solve some of the big crises happening around the world. And how that's playing out is the potential, seeing or potentially worried about some poorer countries looking to other multilateral blocks to see if they can help. The bricks is one that comes to mind, which has been mentioned to me by diplomats. So we're seeing the rivalry between sort of China, Russia and the West really start to play out in who can really best serve developing countries to help them grow.

One issue that is of vital importance to developing nations is climate change. As we've seen this week across the Mediterranean, climate change is bringing about more devastating, unprecedented storms. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has been very vocal about the threat. The climate crisis is barreling out of control. But the collective response is lacking in ambition, credibility and urgency. So what can the body he oversees do about it? Valerie Volkovici covers climate policy. Valerie, how will the General Assembly address this?

Well, the Secretary General on Wednesday will host what he's calling a climate ambition summit. And he's invited heads of state of every country to attend, and they will be allowed to speak with the condition that they're actually announcing new measures to combat climate change and improving on what they've previously announced under the Paris Agreement. Okay, so then they speak. What happens then? All of these new actions will help kind of set the momentum for COP 28.

That's the intention. This is supposed to really energize negotiators and inspire them as they prepare for the climate summit at the end of the year. This also follows on a report that was announced last week, the global stock take, which shows that almost every country is off track towards meeting climate goals that set out under the Paris Agreement to limit the temperature rise, the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. So the goal of this is to get the highest movers, the first movers, setting the pace for other leaders in the kind of couple of

months we have before the Dubai Climate Summit. Michelle, obviously, as you mentioned, Ukraine will be a big focus at Unger. Can you tell us how the UN plans to tackle? Can you tell us how the UN plans to tackle the issue. President Zelensky is due to travel to New York. He'll address the General Assembly. This will be his first physical visit to the UN since the war started in February last year. And then he is expected to also take part in a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday, which will focus on Ukraine. So that could be potentially quite interesting if we happen to see President Zelensky and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sitting around the same table together. But with Russia on the Security Council, what can they even do?

Yeah, so the Security Council obviously is deadlocked with Russia's ability to veto any action. I think what people will be looking for will be any signs from either side that they might be willing to start any kind of talks. The UN Secretary General has said that he doesn't think now is the time or that anyone is ready for peace talks. So we'll see if there are any glimpses of that during the Security Council meeting next week. Another point of global friction is Iran's nuclear ambitions.

It's been five years since US President Donald Trump pulled out from the international nuclear deal. Now Tehran is enriching uranium close to weapons grade. And while a new nuclear deal is not on the cards this week, a U.S.-Iran prisoner swap deal might be. Under that deal, Washington and Tehran would each free five prisoners and $6 billion in Iranian assets would be released. Global Foreign Policy Editor Samir Nakul is based in Dubai.

So, Samia, Iran's president is expected to speak at the assembly at a time when his country is in turmoil. It's been a year after the death of Masa Amini in police custody, which sparked huge nationwide protests, which in turn led to a severe crackdown on dissent. What's changed since then? Nothing really has changed with the regime. There is more crackdown, more repression, more imprisonment of people who were protesting. there's still trials going on. They have executed many, many protesters. So in terms of change, there is less freedom. People are living in fear. There is one slight change which women have still

are resisting to wear the scarf when they can. Even they are defiant, even when they are being arrested, even when they're being challenged, many of them are still defiant. So in terms of the regime, they feel that they succeeded. So this is in summary, nothing has changed for the people of Iran. We're also seeing, as I mentioned, this prisoner swap underway between the US and Iran. What does that tell us about their relations? Yeah, the US-Iran prisoner swap have been going on for years. You know, this is something that the Iranian regime has done. They always take prisoners, dual nationals in return for getting funds that have been frozen under sanctions. So the prisoner swap is part of the talks that were going on about the nuclear that were basically suspended in

2022 without any real change. How do you think Iran is likely to communicate all of these developments at Anga? I mean, they will show that the president is having a speech, is going to attack probably the United States for putting the Iranian under sanctions. They always have a kind of their own propaganda too, which is aimed at their own domestically. For the international community, they would always say that we are open for talks, we are open for negotiations, here we are, we released prisoners, we're happy to resume the nuclear talks. But deep down until they agree to the conditions of the international community, we don't see any kind of deal for the time being. I'm not saying it won't happen, but not imminently.

Michelle, you cover the UN full-time. Obviously, this is a huge week for you. What's it like behind the scenes right now? It's very messy, if I'm going to be completely honest. It's 193 countries. No one really knows what's going on until the last minute. So they like to call it a week of diplomatic speed dating. There's lots of little booths set up that countries can use for world leaders to hold bilateral meetings.

So while we may not see a lot of substantive action come out of the week, there's a lot of communication that goes on. And it's a chance for, you know, some countries who may not speak to each other a lot to have a chat, I guess. So world leaders literally bumping into each other in the hallway? I think there are a lot of attempts to plan most bilateral. But yeah, you're also going to get a lot of leaders running into each other in the hallway or at receptions or say the Met Museum on Tuesday night. So there's lots of opportunities for what the diplomatic term is pull aside. So there's a lot of opportunity for that. A big thanks to Michelle and all our guests on a very busy week for joining us on the podcast.

You can catch all of Reuters' non-stop reporting on Unger on our app or the website. And we'll have regular updates in our daily headline show. Don't forget to tune in every weekday for 10 minutes to know what's going on in your world. And subscribe and rate us on your favourite podcast player. or download the Reuters app.