Biden says peace still possible in conflicts in Mideast, Ukrain
New York: President Joe Biden declared the U.S. must not retreat from the world, as he delivered his final address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday as Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon edged toward all-out war and Israel’s bloody operation against Hamas in Gaza neared the one-year mark.
Biden used his wide-ranging address to speak to a need to end the Middle East conflict and the 17-month-old civil war in Sudan and to highlight U.S. and Western allies’ support for Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Biden told world leaders that Washington will continue to strengthen its network of alliances and partnerships across the Indo-Pacific, which he said are not against any nation, as it seeks to responsibly manage the competition with Beijing. “We also need to uphold our principles as we seek to responsibly manage the competition with China so it does not veer into conflict,” Biden said as he addressed world leaders from the podium of the UN General Assembly.
Delivering his last address as President of the United States, Biden told the General Debate of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly that in matters of conviction, the “US is unabashed, pushing back against unfair economic competition, against military coercion of other nations in the South China Sea, and maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, protecting our most advanced technologies so they cannot be used against us or any of our partners. “At the same time, we’re going to continue to strengthen our network of alliances and partnerships across the Indo-Pacific. These partnerships are not against any nation. There are building blocks for a free, open, secure and peaceful Indo-Pacific,” he said.
Biden’s remarks come just days after he hosted leaders of the Quad group - Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio of Japan - in Wilmington, Delaware, for the fourth Quad Leaders’ Summit.
The Wilmington declaration, asserting that the “Quad is here to stay”, said that “four years since elevating the Quad to a leader-level format, the Quad is more strategically aligned than ever before and is a force for good that delivers real, positive, and enduring impact for the Indo-Pacific.”
It added that a
nations unequivocally stand for the maintenance of peace and stability across this dynamic region, as an indispensable element of global security and prosperity.
“We strongly oppose any destabilizing or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion,” it said. Biden also said that Washington stands ready to cooperate on “urgent challenges of the good of our people and the people everywhere. We recently resumed cooperation with China to stop the flow of deadly synthetic
narcotics.
