As the world faces maximum danger, ensuring collective security requires dialogue and cooperation, Secretary-General tells Security Council – World

SG/SM/21421

Here are the remarks of UN Secretary-General António Guterres during the Security Council meeting on “Maintenance of international peace and security: promoting common security through dialogue and cooperation”, today At New York :

Thank you for having convened the Council on this essential subject.

Our collective security demands that we seize every moment to forge a common understanding of the threats and challenges that lie ahead. And above all, to shape united responses to them. As the subject of this briefing note makes clear, the path to peace is through dialogue and cooperation.

I have just returned from Ukraine, Turkey and Moldova — and I look forward to talking more about this visit on Wednesday. There, I saw the Black Sea Grain Initiative in action – an initiative to get grain and other vital food supplies back through Ukrainian ports. At the same time, we have an agreement to facilitate unhindered access to world markets for food and fertilizers from the Russian Federation.

This comprehensive plan is crucial for the world’s most vulnerable people and countries, who desperately rely on these food supplies. Above all, it is a concrete example of how dialogue and cooperation can bring hope, even in the midst of conflict.

The same commitment to dialogue and results must be applied to the critical situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. I reaffirm that the United Nations has the necessary logistical and security capabilities in Ukraine to support an International Atomic Energy Agency mission from Kyiv to Zaporizhzhia. And we continue the relentless search for peace in Ukraine and in the world, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and international law.

This Council represents a vital part of the peace and prevention process, through resolutions aimed at mitigating conflict, supporting reconciliation and providing humanitarian aid and support to millions of people in need.

But today’s collective security system is being tested like never before. Our world is riven by geopolitical divisions, conflict and instability. From military coups to interstate conflicts, invasions and wars that spread year after year. Persistent differences among the world’s major powers – including within this Council – continue to limit our ability to respond collectively. Humanitarian aid is pushed to the breaking point. Human rights and the rule of law are under attack. Trust is rare.

Many of the systems put in place decades ago now face challenges unimaginable to our predecessors – cyber warfare, terrorism and lethal autonomous weapons. And the nuclear risk has reached its highest point for decades.

The tools that saved us from a catastrophic world war are more important than ever. But they must be adapted to the current rapidly deteriorating environment of international peace and security. We must reforge a global consensus around the cooperation needed to ensure collective security – including the work of the United Nations.

It is also the driving force behind my proposal for a new agenda for peace, contained in my report on Our Common Agenda. Through it, we explore the United Nations Charter’s diplomatic toolkit for ending disputes – in particular the provisions of Chapter VI regarding negotiation, investigation, mediation, conciliation, arbitration and settlement. judicial.

But we also emphasize prevention and peacebuilding. This includes strengthening our forecast of future threats and anticipating long-standing hotspots and conditions that could explode into violence. This includes exploring new and expanded roles for regional actors and groups, particularly as cross-border threats to peace and security emerge.

This includes prioritizing human rights in political and financial investments that can address the root causes of conflict – from social protection and education to programming to end violence and discrimination and increase women’s participation in civic and political life.

This includes the ability to establish a new social contract that builds and strengthens bonds of trust between people who inhabit the same borders – and in the governments and institutions that represent them – so that all can contribute to building peace. . It includes joint efforts to unite countries around the need to reduce the risks arising from cyber warfare and lethal autonomous weapons. And that includes accelerating efforts to eliminate the nuclear threat, once and for all.

The Tenth Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, meeting this month, must demonstrate that progress is possible. I renew my appeal to all States parties to demonstrate flexibility and a willingness to compromise in all negotiations. Countries with nuclear weapons must commit to “no first use” of these weapons. They must also assure states that do not possess nuclear weapons that they will not use – or threaten to use – nuclear weapons against them, and that they will be transparent throughout. .

The nuclear slashings must stop. We need all states to recommit to a nuclear-weapon-free world and spare no effort to come to the negotiating table to ease tensions and end once and for all to the nuclear arms race.

The future of humanity is in our hands today. At this moment of maximum danger to our world, the time has come to renew our commitment to the Charter of the United Nations and the ideals it represents.

There is no better way to fulfill the Charter’s promise to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” than to replace division with dialogue and diplomacy. To negotiate and compromise. And to hold ourselves accountable for the future.

This Council, and this organization representing the nations of the world, is humanity’s best hope for building a better and more peaceful future. As we craft our new Agenda for Peace, let us show that we have learned the lessons of the past. Let us reconnect with the eternal tools of peace — dialogue, diplomacy and mutual trust. Thanks.

For news media. Not an official record.