SG/SM/21580
11 NOVEMBER 2022
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ opening remarks to the twelfth Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-United Nations Summit, in Phnom Penh, today:
Thank you very much for much for your warm hospitality and for the wonderful organization of this Summit. It is a pleasure to be here in person for the first time in three years.
My thanks to Cambodia as the Chair of ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] for its important efforts at this time of serious global challenges. Deepening divisions threaten global peace and security. Dangerous rhetoric is raising nuclear tensions.
Many countries in the Global South, battered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis, face severe restrictions on their access to food, energy and finance — exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and crushing debt. Geopolitical divides are contributing to global insecurity,…