Tag: United Nations

Jaishankar takes ‘Bharat’ to United Nations

It was during the 18th G20 summit in New Delhi earlier this month that the Modi Government first started promoting ‘Bharat’ as the name of the country in the international forums.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. Credit: PTI Photo

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on Tuesday took its promotion of ‘Bharat’ as the name of the country to the United Nations with the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar commencing his address to the General Assembly of the international organisation with a ‘Namaste from Bharat’ greeting.

He concluded his 18-minute-long speech at the 78th General Assembly of the United Nations by defining “India that is Bharat” as “a civilizational policy” that embraced “modernity” and brought “both tradition and technology equally confidently to the table”.

It was during the 18th G20 summit in New Delhi earlier this month that the Modi Government first started promoting “Bharat” as the name of the country in the international forums. An invitation for a dinner at the Rashtrapati Bhavan was sent to the G20 delegates and other guests with the host being mentioned as “President of Bharat”. It prompted the Congress and the other opposition parties to allege that the BJP-led government was trying to drop India from the name of the country. They called it a move by the Modi Government in response to the opposition parties naming their alliance as I.N.D.I.A.

When Modi chaired the G20 summit on September 9 and 10, the plaque in front of him also read “Prime Minister Bharat”.

Source: https://www.deccanherald.com/india/jaishankar-takes-bharat-to-united-nations-2702281

‘Empire of lies’: Russia’s Lavrov slams West in UN speech

Russia’s foreign minister glosses over Ukraine, accuses Western allies of neo-colonialism at the UN General Assembly.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a news conference after addressing the UN General Assembly [Eduardo Munoz/Reuters]
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called the West an “empire of lies” and accused it of adopting a neo-colonial mindset in its overtures to the Global South to win backing for Ukraine in the war.

Speaking after a week of intense global diplomacy at the annual gathering of world leaders at UN headquarters in New York, where Ukraine and its Western allies sought to drum up support for Kyiv as it fights against Russia’s invasion, Lavrov said a “global majority” was being duped by the West.

“The US and its subordinated collective continue to fuel conflicts which artificially divide humanity into hostile blocks and hamper the achievement of overall aims,” Lavrov said.

“They are trying to force the world to play according to their own self-centred rules.”

James Bays, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic correspondent, said Lavrov’s speech was part of a “tour around the world of Russia’s views” that contained no real mention of Ukraine and few indications of Moscow’s plan one year into the conflict.

During a news conference following the speech, the foreign minister dismissed a 10-point proposal put forward by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as the latest UN proposals to revive the Black Sea grain initiative.

“It is completely not feasible,” he said of the peace blueprint promoted by Kyiv. “It is not possible to implement this. It’s not realistic and everybody understands this, but at the same time, they say this is the only basis for negotiations.”

He also said the UN proposal would not fly because the West did not deliver on its promises to Moscow, including removing sanctions on a Russian bank and reconnecting it to the global SWIFT system.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/23/empire-of-lies-russias-lavrov-slams-west-in-un-speech

Ukraine, Russia and the tense UN encounter that almost happened — but didn’t

It was a moment the diplomatic world was watching for — but didn’t get.

In the end, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov avoided staring each other down Wednesday across the U.N. Security Council’s famous horseshoe-shaped table. Zelenskyy left before Lavrov arrived.

The near-miss was somewhat to be expected. Yet the moment still spoke to the U.N.’s role as a venue where warring nations can unleash their ire through words instead of weapons. The choreography also underscored the world body’s reputation as a place where adversaries sometimes literally talk past each other.

Zelenskyy denounced Russia as “a terrorist state” while Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia sat facing him near the other end of the table’s arc. As Zelenskyy launched into his remarks, the Russian looked at his phone, then tucked the device away.

Zelenskyy left before Lavrov’s arrival, which came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was accusing Russia of having “shredded” key provisions of the U.N. Charter.

Lavrov, in turn, reiterated his country’s claims that Kyiv has oppressed Russian speakers in eastern areas, violating the U.N. charter and getting a pass on it from the U.S. and other western countries. Across the table was Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya, his eyes on his phone during at least parts of Lavrov’s remarks. (Blinken, for his part, took handwritten notes.)

If there was no finger-pointing face-off, the atmosphere was decidedly prickly.

Before Zelenskyy’s arrival, Nebenzia objected to a speaking order that put the Ukrainian president before the council’s members, including Russia. (Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, the meeting chair, retorted: “You stop the war, and President Zelenskyy will not take the floor.”)

Zelenskyy had been in the same room, but hardly eye to eye, with a Russian diplomat during the Ukrainian leader’s speech Tuesday in the vast hall of the U.N. General Assembly, which this week is holding its annual meeting of top-level leaders. (Russian Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky later said, wryly, that he’d been focusing on his phone and “didn’t notice” Zelenskyy’s address.) Before that, Zelenskyy last encountered a Russian official at a 2019 meeting with President Vladimir Putin.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/un-russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-lavrov-security-council-b7f8e47c3a3b1eeb02193452017b97e4

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