KASHMIR FACE-OFF
SECOND DAY OF UN DEBATE SHOWS WORLD CONSUMED BY INTRACTABLE CONFLICTS
Pakistan wants peace with India. I have gone the extra mile to achieve this. But India has posed unacceptable preconditions to engage in a dialogue.” Nawaz Sharif | Pakistan Prime Minister It is shocking that a leader of a free nation can glorify a self-declared terrorist Burhan Wani. Sharif is talking of going the extra mile for improving India-Pakistan ties. Where is the extra mile?” Modi government official
Sharif presents dossier on Kashmir to Ban; New Delhi responds to charges |
World leaders from Pakistan to Ukraine unleashed their regional grievances on Wednesday, taking the stage of the UN General Assembly to rage against their neighbours and presenting a picture of a chaotic world consumed by intractable conflicts.
A few paces from the General Assembly hall, the United States and Russia bitterly attacked each other during a Security Council meeting meant to salvage Syria’s faltering ceasefire. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon implored Syria’s warring parties to lay down their arms.
In the midst of the anger, a few bright spots emerged on the second day of the annual UN gathering of heads of states. Colombia basked in world praise when it presented its newly reached peace agreement with leftist rebels to the Security Council. Former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi made her first General Assembly speech since she formed a democratically elected government in Myanmar.
But on the International Day of Peace, tensions on all corners of the planet filled the halls of the United Nations.
Chinese frustration
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang voiced his country’s mounting frustration with ally North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, highlighting the urgency of reaching “a comprehensive political solution on the Korean nuclear issue.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe devoted about half of his address to North Korea, which earlier this month conducted its fifth nuclear test in defiance of repeated Security Council resolutions intended to constrain its weapons development.
Abe said North Korea this year fired three missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone and it was a matter of luck that no ships or aircraft were damaged. He urged unity in the Security Council to confront the North Korean threat.
“We must concentrate our strengths and thwart North Korea’s plans,” Abe said.
There was positive news in Ukraine, where the government and separatist rebels agreed on Wednesday to pull back troops and weapons from several areas in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to uphold a fragile peace agreement reached last year.
But at the United Nations, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lambasted Russia for being “the instigator and major participant” in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
“The terrorist component of the undeclared hybrid war that Russia wages against Ukraine is evident,” Poroshenko said.
Respite from the invective came from Colombia, which appeared at the annual UN gathering as a country in peace for the first time in five decades.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos devoted almost his entire speech to the peace deal reached with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which will be signed in Cartagena later this month and must be submitted to a national referendum on October 2.
“A new Colombia greets the international community today,” Santos said. “A Colombia full of hope. A Colombia that, without a war, is ready to reach its highest potential and to be a positive factor in the global context.”
He later met with President Barack Obama, who praised the peace accord as an “achievement of historic proportions.”
Ban commended Santos for his “vision and determination.”
“In a time of armed conflicts in many other paces, peace in Colombia sends a powerful message of hope in the world,” Ban said.
The terrorist component of the undeclared hybrid war that Russia wages against Ukraine is evident.” Petro Poroshenko | Ukrainian President