26 January 2009
American Envoy Pledges Renewed Commitment to United Nations
Peacekeeping, climate change, development, proliferation top U.S. agenda
Washington — The United States is committed to helping strengthen the United Nations so it can meet a host of emerging challenges, says America’s new ambassador to the international body, Susan Rice.
“President Obama’s view is clear, that our security and well-being can best be advanced in cooperation and in partnership with other nations. And there is no more important forum for that effective cooperation than the United Nations,” Rice told reporters January 26 after presenting her credentials to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Today’s United Nations faces unprecedented challenges, Rice said. Nearly 90,000 U.N. peacekeepers are deployed in 16 missions around the world. The United Nations is playing a key role in promoting reconstruction and development in Iraq and Afghanistan. The body is also at the center of efforts to address climate change, reduce poverty, combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases, assist refugees and the internally displaced, feed the hungry and confront genocide.
“In facing the challenges of the scale that lie before us, all peoples and all nations should focus on what we have in common: our shared desires to live freely and securely in health with hope and opportunity. Those are the interests and aspirations of the American people, and they are shared by billions around the world,” Rice said in her January 15 U.S. Senate confirmation hearing. “We cannot afford any longer to be burdened by labels, such as rich and poor, developed or developing, north or south, nonaligned or western.”
Strengthening peacekeeping operations, particularly in African hot spots such as Sudan’s Darfur region, will be a top U.S. priority, Rice said. An adviser on Africa during the Clinton administration, Rice said the Obama administration remains “very deeply concerned about the ongoing genocide in Darfur.”
“The priority at this point has to be effective protection for civilians,” she said, adding that the year-old U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur must be fully staffed “so that there is the capacity on the ground to begin to effect that civilian protection.”
U.S. diplomatic engagement in international climate negotiations will be another priority, Rice said. “To tackle global warming, all major emitting nations must be part of the solution. Rapidly developing economies, such as China and India, must join in making and meeting their own binding and meaningful commitments. And we should help the most vulnerable countries adapt to climate change,” Rice said.
A third U.S. priority will be to build on America’s long-standing support of U.N. development and global health programs, Rice said, reiterating Obama’s pledge to adopt the body’s Millennium Development Goals.
Nuclear nonproliferation will also be on the agenda, Rice said, pledging “direct diplomacy” to urge Iran to join international negotiations over its nuclear program — the subject of three rounds of economic sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council.
“Dialogue and diplomacy must go hand in hand with a very firm message from the United States and the international community that Iran needs to meet its obligations as defined by the Security Council, and its continued refusal to do so will only cause pressure to increase,” Rice said.
