From Zelensky to Pezeshkian, five speeches that stood out at this year’s U.N. General Assembly debate

To add another thousand square kilometers, Putin is paying with 248 people for every kilometer… […] And we know that Putin recently once again promised representatives from the American President that he would seize our Donetsk region. And he said he needs just a few more months…

This is probably the 17th or 18th time in 5 years that he has made this promise. It is always the same: “Just a few, a few more months”…

And then he moves the deadline again. […] Something always seems to stop Putin from simply saying: “That’s it. Enough. Peace.”

Something always stops him from admitting that 17 million square kilometers of his own territory — internationally recognized by all of you — should be enough for this man. […] He is “patient zero” — the one from whom this idea of war keeps spreading further. […] The more freedom Putin has to act – the more dangerous the world becomes for everyone else.

That is why “patient zero” must be stopped.

Russia — and President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly confirmed this — is prepared to negotiate to achieve precisely such a lasting and just peace. […] But having learned from bitter experience, we will not pause the special military operation during negotiations, regardless of their format. Europe wants exactly that, however, with the same simple goal of gaining a respite and replenishing the depleted military arsenals of the Kyiv regime, which, out of desperation, long ago resorted to openly terrorist methods.

[…]

When President Donald Trump said that Greenland could very well become part of the United States, a U.N. spokesperson was asked at a press conference what he thought about it. He replied: “The issue must be resolved on the basis of international law, the U.N. Charter, the principle of Denmark’s territorial integrity, and the right of Greenland’s population to self-determination.”

At a press conference on January 29 of this year, António Guterres was asked: “Does the right to self-determination also apply to Crimea and Donbas?” The secretary-general replied (I am compelled to quote him in full): “We have had some very interesting discussions on this subject. There are two principles. One is the territorial integrity of states. The other is the self-determination of peoples. But the self-determination of peoples entails a whole series of requirements, given the way this principle was formulated. And after a very careful study by our Office of Legal Affairs, our position is that the principle of self-determination does not apply to the situations in Crimea and Donbas. Therefore, in this situation, the principle of territorial integrity prevails.” If anyone understood any of that, I envy you.

As we can see, Greenland is neither Crimea nor Donbas, and “never the twain shall meet.” We eagerly await the next episode in this “series.” It will be interesting to hear the Secretariat’s response to possible questions from journalists about the plans of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

After more than four years of a senseless colonial war, Vladimir Putin has achieved nothing. He is running out of troops and resources and needs a pretext to mobilize. […] At any moment, Putin might try to provoke a NATO country and spread the war further, as we have heard from others.

To the representatives of the Russian Federation, I have this to say: […] You have been stopped by heroic Ukraine, a country with one tenth of Russia’s GDP. But Poland has almost half of your GDP, Europe has ten times your GDP, and NATO has 25 times your GDP.

You can still kill a lot more people, but you cannot win. […] Sergey, I know you’re listening. Tell your boss: Enough is enough.

The United States President described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism. I come from an Iran in which our esteemed Supreme Leader was assassinated without any legal framework or reason. I come from an Iran where, in truth, they bombed a school. You see these children? These children perished under bombs, with weapons used by the United States and Israel. They were innocent, had committed no crimes.

[…]

Those who are terrorists and train and protect terrorists describe us as such. We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists. Our innocent people have been the targets of cowardly attacks and aggressions imposed upon our country, and we defended ourselves with utmost strength. America and Israel attacked us, equipped with the latest technology and weapons systems, and our people stood steadfast. Yes, they did hit us, but we did not bend the knee. We did not bow our head.

[…]

Two hundred years—for the past two centuries— Iran has not attacked any country or any territory, but we’ve always defended ourselves steadfastly. But now we’re being accused of being [a] source of instability in the region? We’re labeled terrorists?

[…]

I will repeat: the nuclear weapon is in Israel, but the inspectors [are] in Iran. Israel kills, but Iran is subject to sanctions. […] Iran does not seek special treatment. We seek equal rights. […] Iran must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force.

That is, it became a useless organization whose only purpose is to feed a caste of parasites — hopelessly arrogant people disguised as well-intentioned bureaucrats. […] And as if that were not enough, an organization created to defend the territorial sovereignty of its members decided to look the other way when it came to the Malvinas Islands, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands, and the surrounding maritime areas.

[…]

Mr. President, just as I have shown you how the U.N. failed to do what it was supposed to do, I now want to tell you how it excelled at doing what no one asked it to do and what it never should have done. Alongside this failure, they have built a bureaucratic leviathan devoted to deciding how the peoples of the world and their citizens should live.

[…]

During the pandemic, agencies under this organization placed themselves above scientific evidence and the sovereignty of nations, promoting forced lockdown policies around the world that destroyed jobs, ruined the education of an entire generation of children, and cost millions of people their lives as they died alone, without basic medical care. Where some see a public-health policy mistake, we see a global experiment in social control disguised as science. And when a state, blinded by public-health considerations, strips its population of the right to work, to receive an education, and to say goodbye to their dead, and this results in millions of preventable deaths, there is a word for it: genocide.

[…]

That is why I tell you: when it comes to artificial intelligence, Argentina will put itself at the forefront of freedom. We have the critical minerals, the energy, the talent, and the capacity to compete at every link in that value chain, and we want to be the most competitive place in the world to develop it, with a cutting-edge legal framework, a commitment not to regulate preemptively, a commitment not to regulate preemptively, limited liability for companies that operate with AI agents, and tax benefits.