Jaishankar meets UN chief, discusses regional issues

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held talks with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in New York, where the two leaders exchanged views on a range of pressing global and regional issues.

He decried a perceived lack of global solidarity on a number of issues. Pointing to the conflicts in Ukraine and the West Asia and "innumerable hotspots" during his speech, Jaishankar had asked, "How has the UN lived up to expectations?"

He described the slow progress of the Sustainable Development Goals (which are way off track for completion by the 2030 deadline) as “a sorry picture”. He also accused wealthy countries of insulating themselves from energy and food insecurity, while saying that resource-stressed nations “scrambled to survive only to hear sanctimonious lectures thereafter”.