Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report. It’s day three of the high-level week here at the United Nations, and everything is still gridlocked, from the traffic outside to the Security Council.
Here’s what’s on tap for the day: The Security Council meets on Lebanon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previews his “victory plan,” and Haiti sees modest progress from a U.N.-backed security mission.
The U.N. Is What You Make It
The war in Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East bookended the agenda on Wednesday, with Zelensky addressing the General Assembly in the morning and the Security Council meeting in the evening to discuss the escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
But Wednesday was also packed with high-level meetings on sustainable development, rising sea levels, the desperate humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan, and the security crisis in Haiti. While these issues may struggle to cut through the headlines, they are a reminder of the vast scope of crises that diplomats and politicians are seeking to move the needle on during the high-level week. While the Security Council may be in a geopolitical logjam, the United Nations is still a singular forum for fostering global cooperation.
“The U.N. system does such great work with elimination of diseases, development aid, many, many issues,” Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze told SitRep in an interview. “There’s lots to be said about the U.N. It’s not perfect, but it’s up to the members to make it useful.”
(For more on this, our editor in chief, Ravi Agrawal, spoke with Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group, on FP Live on Tuesday about whether the global body can still be effective in a world at war.)
Ukraine. Zelensky used his speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday to preview his “victory plan” for Ukraine and call out Russia’s targeting of the country’s energy infrastructure. The Ukrainian leader began his remarks by recalling one of what he said was one of the “most horrifying” moments of the war: Russia’s March 2022 storming of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which remains occupied by Russian forces.
“This is the major source of radiation danger in Europe, possibly in the world. That’s why, in the Peace Formula I presented, the first point is about nuclear safety,” he said.
In an interview with ABC News that aired on Tuesday, Zelensky said Russia was using information from Chinese satellites to surveil Ukrainian nuclear facilities.
What about Belarus? With Zelensky set to present his peace plan to U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday, opposition leaders from neighboring Belarus—which currently hosts Russian forces and nuclear weapons—want to make sure their country is not forgotten in peace talks to end the war.
“The fate of Belarus and Ukraine are intertwined,” Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said. “That’s why it’s important to get Belarus out of this war as well.”
Another cease-fire. The Security Council is meeting to discuss the situation in Lebanon on Wednesday evening.
“Let me be frank, the region is on the brink of a full-scale catastrophe,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters before the meeting. “If unchecked, the world will face catastrophic consequences unlike anything before.”
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said Israel prefers a diplomatic solution to the crisis but that “if diplomacy fails to return our residents to their homes, then we will use all means at our disposal in accordance with international law to achieve our aims.”
While the term “cease-fire” has become synonymous with Gaza, expect to see the word creeping into the lexicon of officials discussing this conflict as well this week, as they scramble to avert what could be a catastrophic war between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
Last week, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy became the first foreign minister of a G-7 country to call for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon. “We’ve got to move on from calling for de-escalation and restraint,” a British official told SitRep, speaking on condition of anonymity based on ground rules set by the country. “We want to see an immediate cease-fire, the implementation of a political plan that allows for Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return to their homes.”
In an interview with SitRep on Tuesday, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo questioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s objectives in the country’s campaign of airstrikes in Lebanon. “We’re very concerned,” he said. “Very concerned. Because, look, at some point you need sensible people who have political will to resolve the conflict. Today, that’s not the case.”
“Today, it seems that politically surviving for a couple of more weeks seems to be more important for some people than trying to find peace and security for their own population,” he added.
With the West Bank, Gaza, and now Lebanon, “we have three domains where the situation is on the brink of not being under control anymore,” De Croo said, lamenting that Netanyahu delayed his visit to New York until Friday. “It would be good to just have him onstage and explain what he really wants. To me, it’s not clear.”
Haiti. The Biden administration is surprisingly optimistic about the potential for improvement in Haiti’s security as a U.N.-backed mission aimed at helping the country’s police and security forces to tackle rampant gang violence gets underway there. The Kenyan-led mission is “carrying out operations on a near-daily basis going after gang leaders,” a senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity based on ground rules set by the agency, told reporters on Wednesday. “We are seeing more activity on the streets of Haiti. Normal life has returned or is beginning to return.”
The mission’s one-year mandate expires on Oct. 2 and needs to be renewed for another year for the effort to continue; the Security Council is scheduled to vote on it on Sept. 30. Kenya’s recent promise to send 600 more police officers to Haiti brings the total planned contingent—which also includes pledges of support from Belize, El Salvador, Jamaica, and Guatemala, among others—to more than 3,100 personnel. Yet so far, only around 400 officers, all from Kenya, have actually deployed.
“We worry that without the urgent implication of everyone to support this effort, we will lose the little success that we’ve been able to obtain at a very large price,” Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille said Wednesday on the sidelines of UNGA.
The United States announced this week that it is giving $160 million in additional development and health aid to Haiti.
Rising tides. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Wednesday morning that the world faced a “rising tide of misery” with sea levels increasing faster than at any time during the last 3,000 years. A coalition of island nations is insisting that their full sovereignty must be respected even as land is subsumed by the oceans.
Healing wounds. Biden sat down with Vietnamese President To Lam at the InterContinental hotel in Manhattan this week. In brief remarks to the press pool, Biden said a “new era” in U.S.-Vietnamese relations was ushered in by his visit to Hanoi last year. “Since then, I’ve been very proud of the progress we made,” he said, citing “unprecedented” cooperation between the two countries on cybersecurity, ensuring freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific, and working to “heal the wounds” of war.
On the Button
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Stonewalled. Russia and China have been blocking once-routine moves at the United Nations this week, including a U.S.-led effort to sanction Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, Politico reports—and those aren’t the only plans that the two U.S. adversaries are planning on crashing. Western diplomats believe China is likely to block an effort to create a U.N.-mandated peacekeeping mission in Haiti and to work with Russia to stymie a push to establish a U.N. treaty on crimes against humanity.
Forward-deployed. Dozens of U.S. troops are headed to Cyprus, CNN reports, as part of the Biden administration’s preparations for the possible impact of an all-out war in Lebanon, which could see a scramble to evacuate U.S. citizens from that country. Although Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters this week that more U.S. service members were being deployed to the region as Israel has continued to intensify strikes on Lebanon in recent days, the agency had previously not indicated where additional forces were headed.
The deployments leave about 40,000 U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East, with the USS Abraham Lincoln deployed in the Gulf of Oman and the USS Harry S. Truman now on the way to the Mediterranean from Norfolk, Virginia. Meanwhile, the Biden administration could lay out new initiatives for a pause in Lebanon and a cease-fire deal in Gaza as early as Wednesday. The British government announced that 700 U.K. troops would also deploy to Cyprus.
Hot water. Zelensky is under fire from congressional Republicans for his first moves during his visit to the United States, including visiting a Pennsylvania ammunition plant and criticizing Republican vice presidential contender J.D. Vance in a New Yorker interview.
A group of several House Republican lawmakers is demanding the Biden administration provide details on the possible use of U.S. military aircraft and a U.S. Secret Service detail to get Zelensky to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, where the Ukrainian leader thanked workers for helping to produce artillery shells used to blunt Russia’s full-scale invasion. House Speaker Mike Johnson is going as far as to call on Zelensky to fire Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, over the visit, which Johnson labeled a “partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats” and “election interference” because Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro—a backer of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign—attended but no Republicans were invited.
Two top Republican senators, John Thune and John Cornyn, warned Zelensky to stay out of U.S. politics after he called Vance “too radical” in the interview that was published on Sunday.
Snapshot
On Thursday, high-level speakers will continue to take the podium at the U.N. General Assembly. We’re expecting to hear from Kenyan President William Ruto, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Sudanese de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, European Council President Charles Michel, and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani. A number of top diplomats are speaking on Thursday too, but we have one speech in particular circled: Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib’s speech in the afternoon.
The U.N. is also holding a high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance and a high-level plenary meeting for the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
“Do something, @Amtrak. #WakeUpAmtrak”
—Alexander Kamyshin, a Ukrainian presidential advisor and former CEO of Ukrainian Railways, took a break from the UNGA chaos to head to Penn Station, only to find most of the trains delayed.
Overseen at UNGA. Security remains tight—both inside and outside the building. At one point, SitRep got stuck in Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s gaggle going up the escalators. Traffic jams ensnared frustrated New Yorkers, who were not shy to vent at the NYPD officers and U.S. Secret Service agents manning the barricades, and even delayed SitRep’s off-site interview with Belgium’s De Croo, as the outgoing head of government was among those caught in bumper-to-bumper Midtown congestion. (Stay tuned for more on that conversation in tomorrow’s edition.)
The post The United Nations Is Still the Biggest Platform for Global Cooperation appeared first on Foreign Policy.
