Crown prince in NYC as leaders gather to resolve Syrian conflict, refugee crisis

RIYADH: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif joins US President Barack Obama and other world leaders in New York today to attend the UN General Assembly session and to seek united global efforts to solve pressing regional and international problems including the gruesome Syrian conflict and the mounting refugee crisis.

Top leaders of about 195 nations have gathered in the US to attend the 71st session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).
The UNGA session, beginning on Sept. 19 and running through Sept. 26, will also be attended by several high-ranking Saudi officials, who are accompanying the crown prince, said a Royal Court statement on Sunday. Prominent among them are Adel Al-Jubeir, foreign minister; Ibrahim Al-Assaf, finance minister; Majed A. Al-Qassabi, commerce and investment minister; and Adel Al-Toraifi, culture and information minister.
A packed agenda awaits the world leaders. “From the Arab perspective, the immediate issues before the assembly are Syria, Yemen and refugees and migrants,” said Talmiz Ahmed, a political analyst and former Indian ambassador to the Kingdom, in a report published in Al Arabiya on Sunday.
“Similarly, Yemen remains the theater of sustained internecine conflict in which several thousand have been killed and the country faces an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in which the well-being of several million Yemenis is at risk,” he said.
“Saudi Arabia is one the most important members of the UN,” said Prof. Ismail J. Oraifi, an academic.
He said Saudi Arabia has also been a major donor to the UN agencies. The Kingdom was one of the few nations that signed the UN Charter during the early days of UN inception, precisely on June 26, 1945; and its membership was accepted on Oct. 18 the same year. The Kingdom also took part in San Francisco conference, which approved the UN charter. Its delegation was headed by late King Faisal bin Abdulaziz, then Saudi foreign minister.
This UNGA will be the last that Obama and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will attend during their eight- and 10-year tenures in office, respectively. All Arab states including GCC nations are attending the UNGA session.
Asked about the US participation, Lincoln Frager, a spokesman of the US Embassy in Riyadh, said: “Obama is scheduled to speak at the UNGA on Tuesday… and it will be the eighth time he addresses it.”
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, “The president will use that speech to talk about some of the progress that the US has made in unifying the international community … to address climate change, prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, counter Daesh, or even to resolve the refugee crisis.”