U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that the situation in Syria is unacceptable and the world is not as unified as it should be to try to stop the more than five-year-old conflict.
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Obama’s address also comes amid fresh reminders of the destabilizing threats he’ll leave behind when he departs office in January.
Obama’s speech in NY on Tuesday was a defense of globalism and an attack on authoritarians, tribalists and populists in which he never mentioned the Republican vying to succeed him in office, bloomberg.com reported.
World leaders are grappling with the largest crisis of displaced persons since World War II, more than 65 million people who have fled their homes because of armed conflict or persecution, or because they are seeking asylum or a better way of life. “It’s not just the right thing to do – it’s the smart thing to do”, said Mr. Obama.
“In order to move forward though, we do have to acknowledge that the existing path to global integration requires a course correction”, Mr Obama said.
The UN chief hailed the aid workers on the convoy to Aleppo province as “heroes” and said “those who bombed them were cowards” before calling for accountability for crimes committed in the war. “I want to suggest to you today that we must go forward and not back”.
“A political transition is long overdue”.
Bombings in NY and New Jersey and a stabbing attack in a Minnesota mall over the weekend showed the potential impact of lone-wolf terrorist attacks, many inspired by Islamic State extremists based in Syria and Iraq.
Obama urged Israel to end occupation and Palestinians accept Israel.
Before the summit, CRS, the US bishops’ overseas relief and development agency, joined 30 other nongovernmental organizations in pledging a total of $1.2 billion to help address the refugee crisis over a three-year period.
President Barack Obama, center, joined by Vice President Joe Biden, left, and United States United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power, right, looks to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi as he speaks to media during a bilateral meeting at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel in New York, N.Y., Monday, Sept. 19, 2016.
“In a world that left the age of empire behind, we see Russian Federation attempting to recover lost glory through force”, Mr Obama said. But the subtext was impossible to miss, and could also be interpreted as a criticism of the UK’s decision this year to exit from the European Union.
“On the one hand, there are enormous positive indicators in our world today in terms of economic growth, standards of living, the ability to forge worldwide cooperation on very hard issues like climate change”, Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said last week.
The president and the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton have faced scrutiny from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for their refugee policies.
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“I think the way the President will approach this is trying to apply what we have done that’s worked in the last eight years as a template for how we deal with other crises”, Rhodes said ahead of Obama’s speech.
