The Sundarban
For Maimouna Dieye, Senegal’s minister of household and team spirit, the annual gathering in Novel York of hundreds of world leaders and thousands of diplomats at the United Nations is all about cooperation, dialogue, and solving the world’s pressing challenges together.
“Love every person else, I hear about the U.N.’s failures and diminishing relevance, but to me, that takes the attention some distance from the crucial work occurring here,” she says.
Mrs. Dieye had trustworthy chaired a ministerial convention on ladies, household, and sort Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. Total Assembly, known simply as UNGA, sooner than offering this reporter her thoughts.
Why We Wrote This
The annual United Nations Total Assembly draws the traditional grousing about the usefulness and level of curiosity of such an large gathering. However a transient contemplate at the reduction of the curtain finds cooperation, dialogue, and a dedication to “greater lives for heaps of.”
“At UNGA, we part recommendations and practices that hang improved of us’s lives in our international locations, and over time that switch results in greater lives for heaps of. It would possibly well maybe perchance perchance no longer be what will get a lot of attention,” she provides, “but it’s cooperation and dialogue that hang influence.”
Complaints about the U.N.’s relevance, the usefulness of an large gathering appreciate UNGA, and grousing about an inordinate level of curiosity on only just a few leaders’ speeches – the more queer, the greater the attention – are traditional yearly observations about the world’s premier diplomatic gathering.
This year has been no diverse.
President Donald Trump’s prolonged circulate-of-consciousness speech Tuesday, in which he derided multilateralism and skewered key points on the world agenda from climate switch to the predicament of refugee populations, drew the spotlight some distance from other UNGA events.
Echoing his boss’s sentiments, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did little to nuance his push apart for UNGA when on Tuesday he outlined the U.S. role in the week’s activities on Fox Information.
“It’s trustworthy a status [where] as soon as a year, a bunch of of us meet and affords speeches, and write out a bunch of letters and statements, but no longer a lot of trustworthy, crucial action is going on,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (third from left) meets with Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov (third from honest) as phase of the Eightieth session of the U.N. Total Assembly, at the Lotte Palace Hotel in Novel York, Sept. 24, 2025.
And but on Wednesday on my own, Mr. Rubio’s UNGA agenda incorporated practically a dozen bilateral conferences with leaders and chief diplomats – including one with Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov – a ministerial assembly on Indo-Pacific maritime security (China, are you listening?), and a working dinner with transatlantic colleagues.
And that change into trustworthy the U.S. secretary of state.
At a press convention final week previewing this year’s UNGA, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-Total António Guterres, said 193 delegations, including 89 heads of state, 43 heads of authorities, one crown prince, and 5 vice presidents, were expected to attend. Greater than 1,640 bilateral conferences had been scheduled for the foyer of the Total Assembly Constructing on my own.
Indeed, in most cases a lot is going on that otherwise remarkable moments stride nearly neglected.
One took place Monday on the sidelines of UNGA when retired U.S. Gen. David Petraeus interviewed Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on the stage of the Concordia Summit, an annual excessive-level dialogue in midtown Manhattan.
What made the occasion so inserting is that Total Petraeus change into commanding the U.S. forces in Iraq that imprisoned Mr. al-Sharaa when he change into an Al Qaeda fighter there.
“We went from battle to discourse,” Mr. al-Sharaa told Total Petraeus.
The first Syrian president to attend the U.N. gathering in six a protracted time, Mr. al-Sharaa took his case for sanctions relief for his nation to the UNGA stage.
And he had one of these “no longer a lot of trustworthy, crucial” bilateral conferences with Secretary Rubio.
Syrian presidency press office/AP
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa (left) is interviewed by venerable CIA Director David Petraeus, a retired U.S. standard whose forces in Iraq as soon as imprisoned Mr. al-Sharaa, in the course of the Concordia Annual Summit in Novel York, Sept. 22, 2025.
It’s easy to scoff at UNGA – though Novel York completely doesn’t, the occasion reportedly boosting the city’s economy by $5 billion – with the unending speechifying and myriad conferences appreciate the one Mrs. Dieye chaired.
President Trump lambastes the U.N. for now no longer relaxing one of its core missions, that of solving international conflicts. However in all likelihood one of UNGA’s attributes is that at its most effective, it has the potential to spark serendipitous moments that show off traditional ground between world leaders who otherwise appear to hang little use for every other.
Mr. Trump acknowledged experiencing such a moment when he amended his UNGA speech to order his target audience that he had trustworthy crossed paths at the reduction of the scenes with Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – and he had straight cherished the man.
U.S.-Brazil relations hang sharply deteriorated in the course of Mr. Trump’s 2d term and in the wake of the conviction of venerable President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump buddy and ideological soulmate, of attempting to foment a navy coup. The U.S. has slapped punitive tariffs on Brazilian merchandise and imposed sanctions on the identify in the Bolsonaro case and his household.
“At least for 39 seconds, we had fabulous chemistry,” Mr. Trump said of assembly the Brazilian president, known popularly as Lula, adding that the detect incorporated an embrace. “It’s a trustworthy designate.”
Indeed, Mr. Trump said the half-minute detect had incorporated an settlement by the two ideological opposites to meet soon – somewhat of news Lula confirmed at a press convention Wednesday.
“What seemed no longer in all probability, now it’s that you would also mediate of,” the Brazilian leader said, adding that a gathering would possibly well maybe perchance perchance happen as soon as subsequent week.
