Saudi slams Iran in UN speech
Member states played prerecorded messages during virtual conference
At the United Nations General Assembly’s week of speeches this year, the diplomatic forum has felt more like a film playing to a largely empty theatre. The speeches from leaders of the 193 member states have been prerecorded because of the pandemic, broadcast to a General Assembly hall that is sparsely populated by socially distanced diplomats, clapping ceremoniously at the conclusion of each 15-minute address.
The speeches — often self-congratulatory — are scrutinised for any policy shifts, as in the case of President Xi Jinping of China on Tuesday, when he announced an accelerated target for reducing carbon emissions by his country, the leading emitter of heat-trapping gases.
For some leaders who may have been too frail to make the physical trip to the UN headquarters in New York, this year’s General Assembly has offered an opportunity, as in the case of King Salman of Saudi Arabia, who spoke Wednesday.
King Salman, the 85-year-old monarch who ascended the throne of his oil-rich kingdom in 2015 but has left the day-to-day running of affairs to his 35-year-old son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, made his General Assembly speech debut. He used it to assail Iran, Saudi Arabia’s longtime regional adversary.
Hunched, bespectacled and grasping the speech text with both hands at an ornate desk, he extolled Saudi Arabia’s donations to humanitarian causes, which he said had totalled more than US$86 billion (2.7 trillion baht) to 81 countries over the past 30 years. He then pivoted to denounce what he called “the forces of extremism and chaos” in the Middle East, singling out Iran.
“The Kingdom’s hands were extended to Iran in peace with a positive and open attitude over the past decades, but to no avail,” the king said. He accused the Iranian government of having exploited international efforts to contain its nuclear activities, supporting the Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen and targeting Saudi oil facilities in missile strikes.
“Our experience with the Iranian regime has taught us that partial solutions and appeasement did not stop its threats to international peace and security,” the king said, echoing the language of the Trump administration, which considers Saudi Arabia a vital ally.
The king’s sentiments were basically the opposite of those expressed a day earlier by President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, who portrayed his country as a peace-loving force for good in the region and the world.
The king also expressed support for the Trump administration’s efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But he conspicuously said nothing about the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, as done in recent weeks by two close Saudi regional allies, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
He concluded by expressing sympathy for the people of Lebanon, struggling from a dysfunctional government and the aftermath of the devastating port explosion last month that levelled part of Beirut. The king called the blast “the result of the hegemony of Hezbollah,” the militant Lebanese Shia group aligned with Iran. Hezbollah has denied any role in the port blast, which was caused by an abandoned stockpile of ammonium nitrate.
‘‘ [Saudi Arabia’s] hands were extended to Iran in peace, but to no avail. SALMAN SAUDI KING
‘‘ The spread of authoritarian disease is a threat to all of us. ZUZANA CAPUTOVA SLOVAK PRESIDENT
The king said nothing negative about Saudi Arabia’s own military role in the Yemen conflict, a quagmire that the UN has called the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, where the threat of famine now looms.
He also made no mention of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, its extensive use of capital punishment and the targeting of dissidents including Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist who was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents in Turkey two years ago. The king’s son has been linked by US intelligence to Khashoggi’s death, but the Saudi judiciary has prosecuted only low-level operatives in a secretive trial.
Gender equality is one of the UN’s sustainable development goals — 17 measurements of a better life that the organisation has committed to achieving by 2030. But in a stark reflection of the challenges in reaching that goal, most of the General Assembly speakers are men. It was not until Wednesday that Zuzana Caputova of Slovakia, took the virtual podium, the 48th leader to speak.
Ms Caputova, who was elected last year, said nothing in her speech about gender bias. But she had a pointed message for the world’s strongmen autocrats who have sought to crush their opponents by force.
“Too often we see situations in the world, when people are intimidated, beaten or even threatened with their lives,” she said, mentioning the political crackdown in Belarus and the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader. “And only because they stood up for their rights. The spread of authoritarian disease is a threat to all of us.”
Ms Caputova, a 47-year-old lawyer and relative political newcomer, has emerged as something of a potent counterpoint to the authoritarian leaders in Europe. Her election in March 2019 was regarded as a stunning rebuke of Slovakia’s populist governing party.
The US and about 60 other countries no longer recognise Nicolas Maduro as president of Venezuela, claiming he rigged the 2018 election and has driven his onceaffluent country to economic ruin because of mismanagement and corruption. But Mr Maduro is still regarded as the country’s legitimate leader at the UN, and he made full use of that status in his speech.
Fulminating against what he described as a “multiform attack by the US empire” to depose him, Mr Maduro vowed to resist. He spoke of his country in glowing terms and attributed the economic destitution afflicting millions of Venezuelans to American sanctions.
He said nothing about an investigation commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council that has implicated. Mr Maduro and top aides in egregious abuses. “The United States — we must say this — in the course of history has become the most serious threat to peace in this world,” Mr Maduro said.
The Trump administration has made no secret of wanting Mr Maduro to step aside and has expressed frustration at his tenacity. Venezuela’s opposition, which once stood behind Mr Maduro’s political rival, Juan Guaido, the National Assembly leader who declared himself president in January 2019, has shown recent signs of fracturing.
Some other prominent anti-Maduro politicians have decided to defy an opposition boycott of December congressional elections, a move Mr Guaido has denounced as a treacherous mistake.