President Biden faces an intense itinerary at the UN General Assembly this week, including high-profile talks with the heads of state of Brazil, Israel and Ukraine.
Those meetings come as Biden is expected to be the only member of the five U.N. Security Council leaders scheduled to attend the event.
Other world leaders such as Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will not attend the annual meeting, in addition to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the President of the United States. United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayed Al. Nahyan.
The United Nations General Assembly comes on the heels of a Group of 20-like meeting in New Delhi, India, earlier this month, where both Xi and Putin did not attend the event.
Putin faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court that many have speculated has deterred a visit and Xi will send Vice President Han Zheng on his behalf.
The absences of Xi and Putin will leave Biden with a possible diplomatic opening to make progress in developing nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia, whom the United States has wanted to separate from the orbits of Russia and China.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the event. AFP via Getty Images
At the event, Biden is expected to meet with both Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Then on Thursday, Biden will host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House for talks, marking Ukraine’s third such visit since Biden took office.
In all three cases, Biden has important pending diplomatic objectives in the background.
The administration has been eager to expand the Abraham Accords that former President Donald Trump helped negotiate, ushering in a normalization of relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Biden and Netanyahu have clashed publicly over Israel’s judicial reform, which places limits on the types of laws the country’s Supreme Court can strike down from the Knesset.
On Thursday, Biden will host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House for talks, marking the third such visit from Ukraine since Biden took office. AFP via Getty Images
But the two have publicly maintained that their relationship remains friendly despite some of their differences.
Last week, after the Group of 20 summit, Lula stoked international backlash by claiming that Brazil would not arrest Putin during next year’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.
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Brazil is widely seen as an important ally in South America. Lula later retracted her comments and suggested that she would let the justice system do its thing.
But the episode underscores some concerns about Brazil’s position toward Moscow.
Biden has been seeking to unite nations against Russia in defense of Ukraine.
He is also looking to do the same at home. Zelensky’s visit to Washington, DC, comes at a time when Congress is fighting over government funding.
A handful of House Republicans are eager to cut funding for Ukraine amid a brewing government shutdown fight.
Biden is asking Congress for $13.1 billion in additional military aid and $8.5 billion in humanitarian assistance.
So far, Congress has approved more than $113 billion in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 22, 2022, according to the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General.
But not all of those funds have necessarily been deployed yet.
In July, the Defense Department said it had committed $43 billion in security assistance since the war broke out in February last year.
The UNGA high-level event is scheduled to take place from September 19 to 26.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn