President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a busy diplomatic schedule this week in the United States where he is present to attend the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
On the first day, Erdoğan received Turkish nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in the U.S. He also attended a dinner event organized by the Turkish American National Steering Committee (TASC) at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Erdoğan also received a U.S. senator Sunday in New York City. The meeting with Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware State took place at Turkish House (Türkevi) opposite U.N. headquarters.
The president also hosted Libyan Presidential Council President Mohammad Younes Menfi for talks at the center.
The president will hold bilateral meetings with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Prime Minister of Israel Yair Lapid, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, newly elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Elizabeth Truss and other leaders during his visit.
On the second day of his contacts, he will receive the representatives of the umbrella organizations of the American Jewish community, as well as conduct bilateral meetings.
Erdoğan will address world leaders at the General Assembly on Tuesday, where he will give important messages on the Russia-Ukraine war, the food and energy crisis, and the joint fight against terrorism, and will emphasize Türkiye's red lines. Erdoğan is expected to address the General Assembly fifth.
Erdoğan, who is also expected to meet with representatives of U.S. think tanks, will receive FIFA President Gianni Infantino. President Erdoğan is also expected to attend the reception that will be given by U.S. President Joe Biden and his wife in honor of the heads of delegation and their spouses.
Facing a complex set of challenges that try humanity as never before, world leaders will convene at the U.N. this week under the shadow of Europe’s first major war since World War II – a conflict that has unleashed a global food crisis and divided major powers in a way not seen since the Cold War.
The many facets of the Ukraine war are expected to dominate the annual meeting, which convenes as many countries and peoples confront growing inequality, an escalating climate crisis, the threat of multiple famines and an internet-fueled tide of misinformation and hate speech – all atop a coronavirus pandemic that is halfway through its third year.
For the first time since the U.N. was founded over the ashes of World War II, European nations are witnessing war in their midst waged by nuclear-armed neighboring Russia. Its Feb. 24 invasion not only threatens Ukraine’s survival as an independent democratic nation but has leaders in many countries worrying about trying to preserve regional and international peace and prevent a wider war.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the strategic divides – with the West on one side and Russia and increasingly China on the other – are "paralyzing the global response to the dramatic challenges we face."
He pointed not only to the devastation in Ukraine from nearly seven months of fighting but the war’s impact on the global economy.
Escalating food and energy prices are hitting the world’s poorest people hardest, and nations are "being devoured by the acids of nationalism and self-interest" instead of working together and resolving disputes peacefully, two principles that lie at the heart of the U.N. Charter and underpin everything the U.N. attempts to do.
"The General Assembly is meeting at a time of great peril," the U.N. chief said last week.
For the first time in three years, leaders will be delivering their speeches in person in the vast General Assembly hall. There will be no more COVID-19-caused prerecorded addresses or hybrid meetings, with one exception: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Over objections from Russia and a few allies, the 193-member assembly voted overwhelmingly Friday to allow the Ukrainian leader to pre-record his speech because of reasons beyond his control – the "ongoing foreign invasion" and military hostilities that require him to carry out his "national defense and security duties."