Before the UN, Lula da Silva demands “dialogue” to resolve the war in Ukraine

The president of Brazil, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, called this Tuesday at the UN General Assembly for “dialogue” to resolve the war in Ukraine, and criticized the international community, which bets more on weapons than on peace.

The conflict in Ukraine shows “our collective inability to enforce the objectives and principles of the United Nations Charter,” said the Brazilian president, who recalled that “no solution will be lasting without dialogue.”

“There will be no prosperity without peace,” because “armed conflicts are a challenge to humanity” and promoting “a culture of peace is everyone’s obligation,” but “not everyone assumes it,” declared Lula, who did not condemn the invasion. launched by Moscow in February 2022 and reiterated the need to bring Russia and Ukraine to a negotiating table.

“It is disturbing that there are old unresolved disputes and that new threats are emerging,” said Lula, who also cited the many conflicts that persist in the Middle East, Africa and other regions of the world.

He criticized that the richest nations “invest a lot in weapons and little in development” and condemned the “unilateral sanctions,” which “only bring serious harm to the affected countries.”

He also spoke out against “any attempt to reissue the Cold War” and condemned that the countries of the UN Security Council themselves “declare wars” and promote them in the world.

The president of Brazil, this Tuesday, before the UN General Assembly. Photo: AP

According to Lula, the “paralysis” of the Security Council “is the most eloquent proof” of the need for a reform of the UN and its institutions, so that they reflect the “reality” of the 21st century.

Cited with Volodymyr Zelensky

This Wednesday, within the framework of the General Assembly, Lula plans to meet for the first time with the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, who was in session at the time of his speech.

It will be the first personal meeting between the two, after a videoconference conversation last March.

In recent statements, the Ukrainian leader has reiterated his rejection of Lula’s proposal and assured that, “to say something, it is necessary to understand who is the victim and who is the aggressor” and that peace does not depend on a “unilateral formula.” , but of the “country that suffers.”

On his return to the UN General Assembly as president of Brazil, Lula opened the debates with a strong message against hunger, poverty and the inequalities that exist in the world.

“Hunger must be a central issue,” declared Lula, who cited that “735 million human beings are going to sleep tonight without knowing if they will eat tomorrow,” in an “increasingly unequal world” and in which ” the destiny that every child born on this planet seems to have been traced in his mother’s womb”, by where he is born and by “his social class”.

According to Lula, inequalities “should provoke indignation” and with the strength of that feeling a more just, supportive and fraternal world should be “built.”

The president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, this Tuesday at the UN Assembly in New York. Photo: AFP

“It is necessary above all to overcome the resignation that makes us accept so much injustice as a natural phenomenon,” declared the president of Brazil, who pointed out that there is no doubt that to solve these problems “there is a lack of political will among those who govern the world.”

Return to the forum

In his capacity as president of Brazil, as is tradition at the UN, Lula gave the first speech at the General Assembly, in what was Lula’s eighth participation before the UN.

He has returned to this forum after his first time, in 2003, and after having attended consecutively until 2008, throughout his first two terms.

On this occasion, he regretted that he had to once again mention hunger and inequalities as two great threats that weigh on humanity, as he did in 2003.

He added that, now, twenty years later, to this are added the consequences of global warming, which “are suffered more by the poorest countries,” but he assured that he does not lose “his hope” that the international community will know how to “correct course.” “and focus its global agenda on combating all inequalities.