United Nations Secretary-General received by President Gabriel Boric
The visit to Chile took place as part of the biannual session of the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination.
The President of Chile, Gabriel Boric Font, held a meeting with the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, this Thursday, in which they addressed the challenges of multilateralism, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the pending reforms in the United Nations.
The meeting took place at La Moneda Palace, during a visit that is part of the biannual session of the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination. The session ran from yesterday to Friday in Santiago, and it is the first time that it has been held in Latin America.
After the meeting, both leaders made a joint statement in Las Camelias courtyard. Foreign Affairs Minister Alberto van Klaveren, the Chilean Ambassador to the UN, Paula Narváez, and the Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, Amins Mohammed, were in attendance.
“The United Nations system has made important contributions supporting the nations that need it most, despite often facing obstacles that are difficult to overcome, such as the vetoes of powerful nations due to particular interests that do not look at the common good. These contributions are expressed, for example, in the more than 90 initiatives aimed at moving towards substantive equality in the access and enjoyment of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, with an investment of more than US$18 million, or in those destined to accompany us in the transition towards a sustainable production and consumption model that has meant an investment of more than US$20 million in 2023 alone,” Gabriel Boric, President of Chile.
The president stressed that multilateralism faces difficult challenges: “The prolonged war in Ukraine, the product of an illegal invasion by Russia into Ukrainian territory, the brutal humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where a massacre of the Palestinian people is taking place. We were just talking with the Secretary-General, and one of the things he told me is that more than twice as many civilians have died in the months that the war has been going on in Gaza than in two years of conflagration in Ukraine between two powerful armies. This is not the case here; this is a unilateral massacre. I insist, and let there be no doubt, we have categorically condemned the terrorist acts of Hamas, but, as we have said on other occasions, we are not here to choose between barbarisms.”
Finally, he called on the powers that have the right to veto in the UN not to interpose their particular interests above those of humanity. “Our country, Chile, wants to be part of the solutions. For this reason, we have advocated for a reform of the United Nations and its Security Council. If the reforms are not undertaken, and if countries like the United States continue to veto them, in the end, what is going to happen is that little by little the system is going to fall apart, because it will stop being useful. We do not want it to get to that, because the United Nations has been tremendously important. So, we call on the countries with the right to veto to have a long-term vision, not only the United States, but also Russia, China, England, France, Germany, so that they put the interests of all humanity above individual interests at a given moment,” he indicated.
