(CNN) -- President Barack Obama took his call for world cooperation against terror, climate change, Ebola and a host of other issues to the United Nations Wednesday, saying the world stands at a crossroads "between war and peace; between disorder and integration; between fear and hope."
"Fellow delegates, we come together as United Nations with a choice to make," Obama told the delegation. "We can renew the international system that has enabled so much progress, or allow ourselves to be pulled back by an undertow of instability."
He said many of the world's problems are the result of "the failure of our international system to keep pace with an interconnected world" and urged greater adherence to international norms and more cooperation in the fight against extremism.
He said world leaders must decide on two defining issues: "Whether the nations here today will be able to renew the purpose of the U.N.'s founding, and whether we will come together to reject the cancer of violent extremism."
His speech comes amid numerous international crises, including the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, lingering tensions in Ukraine and the spread of Ebola in Africa, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently said could infect as many as 1.4 million people by early next year.
Later Wednesday, Obama was scheduled to lead a special session of the U.N. Security Council focused on ISIS, which calls itself the "Islamic State." The terror group has seized portions of Syria and Iraq, prompting the United States and now some other nations to launch airstrikes against it.
The council is expected to consider a resolution requiring U.N. member states to take steps to make it more difficult for people to travel overseas to join ISIS, a growing problem for some European countries, particularly.
No comments:
Post a Comment