United States President Joe Biden said at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that the country does not seek “a new Cold War”, AFP reported.
While Biden did not name any country, the statement comes in the context of growing tensions between the US and China.
The 76th session of the UN General Assembly is being held at the world body’s headquarters in New York.
Biden said that the US “is ready to work with any nation that steps up and pursues peaceful resolution to shared challenges even if we have intense disagreement in other areas”.
The US president in his address referred to the withdrawal of the country’s troops from Afghanistan last month, saying that it allowed his administration to shift attention to intensive diplomacy, AP reported.
“We’re opening a new era of relentless diplomacy, of using the power of our development aid to invest in new ways of lifting people up around the world,” he said.
Biden also promised to double the financial aid to poorer countries to help them adopt cleaner energy and deal with the climate change. The US president said he would work with the Congress to increase the aid to $11.4 billion (approximately Rs 84,000 crore) per year by 2024.
“The best part is, making these ambitious investments isn’t just good climate policy, it’s a chance for each of our countries to invest in ourselves and our own future,” Biden told world leaders at the annual gathering.
Earlier before his meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the US president said that no one country can deal with the threats of Covid-19 and the climate crisis.
“America is back,” Biden said, repeating a phrase he uttered immediately after taking over as US president. “We believe in the United Nations and its value.”
UN chief urges US, China to engage in dialogue
Guterres, in remarks at the opening of the UN General Assembly, exhorted the US and China to engage in a dialogue, and warned of an increasingly divided world, AFP reported.
“I fear our world is creeping towards two different sets of economic, trade, financial and technology rules, two divergent approaches in the development of artificial intelligence – and ultimately two different military and geopolitical strategies,” Guterres said.
The UN chief also said the world is “seeing an explosion in seizures of power by force” and a “sense of impunity” is taking hold.
“...It will be impossible to address dramatic economic and development challenges while the world’s two largest economies are at odds with each other,” he added.
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