UNITED NATIONS, Feb 18 (APP): With tensions continuing to mount over the Ukraine crisis, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that he still believed military conflict in Europe âwill not happenâ â but if it did, âit would be catastrophicâ.
Addressing world leaders at the Munich Security Conference in Berlin — amid an intense spike in shelling in eastern Ukraine by opposing sides, and a concentration of Russian troops around the countryâs borders â- the UN chief said that it was high time to âseriously de-escalateâ the crisis.
âThere is no alternative to diplomacy,â he said, adding that âall issues, including the most intractable, must be addressed through diplomatic frameworksâ.
Quoting from the United Nations Charter, which Guterres defended as a fundamental pillar of international law, he said that all nations âshall settle their international disputes by peaceful means, in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangeredâ.
All parties should be âextremely careful with their rhetoricâ, the UN Secretary-General continued, after noting that the threat to global security today âis more complex and probably higherâ than during the Cold War.
During that era, Guterres explained that safeguards and safety checks existed to allow nations to prevent crises by using âback-channelsâ.
Today however, âmany of those systems no longer exist and most of the people trained to use them are no longer hereâ, he insisted, while âmiscommunication or miscalculation can make a minor incident between powers, escalate out of controlâ.
More than 100 foreign ministers were also due to attend the annual summit in the German city, although Russiaâs foreign minister was reportedly not in attendance.
Turning away from Ukraine, the UN Secretary-General underlined the increased unpredictability and fragility of the global landscape, including in Yemen and Libya.
âCoups used to happen once every couple of years; in 2022, itâs once every couple of weeksâ, he said, as he called for intractable geopolitical divides to be contained by âmore effective collective security responsesâ, for which the blueprint is outlined in Our Common Agenda.
Turning to the worldwide threat of global terrorism, Guterres insisted that the situation in some African countries was âunsustainableâŠwe need robust African peace enforcement and counter-terrorist operations, mandated by the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter, and with stable and predictable fundingâ.
Rising inequality, the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic also threatened global security, the UN chief said, before urging all countries to step up support for solutions to these threats, as part of a surge in âdiplomacyâŠpolitical will andâŠinvestment for peaceâ.
Urgent actions that were needed now to these ânon-traditional security threatsâ included the full implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change to keep 1.5 degrees alive, support for the the World Health Organization global vaccination strategy and global finance reform, âto enable developing countries to access the resources needed to support their peopleâ.
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