UN Assembly Session Opens Amid Global Strife
The UN General Assembly has opened amid global storm clouds and economic gloom. As Presidents, Prime Ministers, Kings and Potentates gather in New York for the 67th annual session, to the backdrop of spreading violence in the Middle East, a looming nuclear weapons program in Iran, a food and humanitarian crisis in much of the developing world, and the undertow of worldwide recession, delegates will be confronted and likely confounded by challenges which have long- simmered but are now at a boiling point.
Surprisingly the new President of the Assembly is Serbia’s Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic who was elected in June after a strong Russian lobbying effort for the year-long post. Though the youngest Assembly President ever at 37, (not to be confused with the Secretary General) British-educated Jeremic has become well-known for his lawyerly Security Council presentations on the issue of the breakaway Serb province of Kosovo.
To think that fewer than twenty years following the breakup of former Yugoslavia and the indictment of many Serb war criminals in international courts of Justice that a Serb, albeit from a different regime, would gain the prestige to lead the Assembly is quite a diplomatic feat. Significantly two of his advisors include former Russian Premier Yevgeny Primakov (a once legendary KGB Mid-East expert) and former Spainish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos of the Socialist Party.
“Peace and security is a prerequisite for the stability needed for global economic growth, sustainable development and social progress,” stated Jeremic, President of the General Assembly.
As for the actual debate, which begins on September 25, the speakers list includes Presidents and Prime Ministers from the UN’s 193 member states. U.S. President Barack Obama, France’s Francois Hollande, and also the Presidents of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Lithuania. The Kings of Morocco and Jordan will also speak on that first day.
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