by Stefano Vaccara
NEW YORK (USA) (ITALPRESS) – “This is not 1945. The world has gone on. The Organization must also move forward.” With these words Khalilur Rahman, Bangladesh’s foreign minister, today inaugurated his presidency of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, collecting the witness from the German Annalena Baerbock and pointing in the reconstruction of trust towards the UN the priority of his mandate. Rahman took the lead of the General Assembly in a particularly difficult phase for multilateralism, wars, humanitarian crises, climate change and increasing divisions among the great powers.
The theme chosen for the new session is “Restoring trust managing transformation: A United Nations that delivers for all”: recovering trust, governing transformation and building a UN capable of producing results for all. “Union’s multilateralism is tested in ways we have never seen before,” Rahman said in his first meeting with journalists after the oath. The new president, who arrived for the first time at the United Nations as a delegate in 1985, however, recalled that next to the crisis there were opportunities that forty years ago were not, beginning with the new technologies and the governance of artificial intelligence.
The keyword will be “dialogue”. “I am not so naive that everything can be solved quickly and friendlyly,” he acknowledged. Some issues will remain unresolved and others will take time, “but this must not prevent us from looking for a common ground wherever possible.” His presidency, he assured, will remain fully faithful to the United Nations Charter. Rahman also wants to try to “open” the Glass Palace more. He recalled the first words of the UN Charter, “We the peoples”, stressing that they do not say “We the States”: “The Organization is bigger than the Member States.”.
Civil society, media, universities, enterprises and innovation communities, according to the new president, continue too often to be treated by the UN as “the others”. “Unlocking the UN”, opening the UN to their voices, will therefore be one of the objectives of its presidency. A vision that Rahman directly links to the UN’s credibility crisis.
Asked about the reform of the Organization, he promised to support the UN80 process initiated by Secretary General Antonio Guterres, but warned that there will be no sufficient marginal adjustments. “Reforms must be significant” and must help to recover public confidence. “We have a situation where trust is in deficit,” he added.
“The Organization must undertake deeper reforms to be adapted to the future, not only today but tomorrow. This is not 1945, we are not doing the San Francisco Conference. We are at the 81st session. The world has gone on. The Organization must move forward and I will help this process.”.
Rahman, however, takes the presidency with a special feature: at least until today he formally maintains the position of foreign minister of Bangladesh, assumed last February. He confirmed it himself during the stakeout when, to a journalist who asked him about Dhaka’s foreign policy, he replied that he did not want to address national issues in his new role: “I am not here in my national capacity.” Then he specified: “I am still the Foreign Minister. I will talk to you separately.” A special double robe for those who have just promised to be “the president of all countries”, regardless of who voted it.
Rahman nevertheless drew a clear distinction today between the two functions, asking journalists to turn to him, when he is at the UN, in his capacity as president of the General Assembly. The official website of the Government of Bangladesh continues to indicate it as foreign minister. Among the most delicate dossiers that will cross his presidency there will be the choice of Guterres’ successor. To the question whether the next Secretary-General should finally be a woman, Rahman did not unbalance: the Charter, he recalled, establishes that the Security Council recommends a candidate and that the General Assembly appoints him.
However, he promised to work closely with the Member States and with the Council’s presidencies to arrive “at a name as soon as possible”, ensuring an effective and empty transition in the leadership of the Organization.
Rahman, elected on June 2 with 99 votes against 91 from Cyprus candidate Andreas Kakouris, has a long diplomatic experience and within the same United Nations. Before becoming Foreign Minister he had been a national security advisor and senior representative for the Rohingya issue. Speaking of the Rohingya said today that “We the peoples” means all peoples, including those without a state or without a voice to the UN.
Rahman recalled Guterres’ visit to the camps that host the Rohingya and their request to return home: “We brought their voice to the United Nations. I will continue to do so.”.
Baerbock, closing the 80th session, instead defended the institution that leaves after a year at the head of the Assembly: despite all its limitations, he said, “not one day, not only one country would be better without the United Nations.” Rahman therefore collects the hammer with the challenge of demonstrating that an Organization born from the rubble of World War II can still adapt to a world deeply different from that for which it was designed.
– Photo Onu –
(ITALPRESS).
