Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister and Minister for National Security and Intelligence, Child Poverty Reduction, and Ministerial Services of New Zealand, addresses the general debate of the 77th Session of the General Assembly of the UN (New York, 20 - 26 September 2022).
Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern told world leaders, “Russia’s war is illegal. It is immoral. It is a direct attack on the UN Charter and the international rules-based system and everything that this community should stand for.”
Delivering her speech at the high-level debate of the General Assembly today (23 Sep) in New York, Prime Minister Ardern said, “Putin’s suggestion that it could at any point deploy further weapons that it has at their disposal reveals the false narrative that they have based their invasion on.”
She asked “what country who claims to be a liberator, threatens to annihilate the very civilians they claim to liberate? This war is based on a lie.”
The Prime Minister also said that in March, when the world most needed the UN Security Council to act in the defense of international peace and security, it could not, adding that the Council did not fulfil its mandate because of one permanent member who was willing to abuse its privileged position.
She said, “for the United Nations to maintain its relevancy, and ensure that it truly is the voice of the breadth of countries it represents, the veto must be abolished, and Permanent Members must exercise their responsibility for the benefit of international peace and security, rather than the pursuit of national interest.”
Prime Minister Ardern also said that New Zealand is a nation that is both of the Pacific, and within it. It was in its region that these weapons of war were tested. Those tests have left a mark on the people, lands and waters of its home.
She reiterated, “nuclear weapons do not make us safer. There will be those who agree but believe it is simply too hard to rid ourselves of nuclear weapons at this juncture.”
The Prime Minister continued, “there is no question that nuclear disarmament is an enormous challenge. But if given the choice, and we are being given a choice, surely we would choose the challenge of disarmament than the consequences of a failed strategy of weapons-based deterrence.”
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Screenshot credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak
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