UNITED NATIONS: The Latest from the U.N. General Assembly (all times EDT):
10:30 a.m.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for an international conference early next year to launch a genuine peace process while criticizing the recent decision of two Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel.
In an address before the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, Abbas seemed to acknowledge the growing international weariness with the decades-old conflict, saying I wonder what more I can say after all Ive said on countless occasions.
The Palestinians have rejected President Donald Trumps proposal to end the conflict that overwhelmingly favors Israel, and have officially cut off contacts with both the U.S. and Israel. Instead, they have called for a multilateral peace process based on U.N. resolutions and past agreements.
They have also rejected the decision of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize ties with Israel, viewing it as a betrayal of the longstanding Arab consensus that recognition of Israel should only come in exchange for territorial concessions.
In his speech, Abbas said the agreements, signed at the White House earlier this month, are a violation of the principles of a just and lasting solution under international law.
Abbas spoke before a large plaque reading State of Palestine. The Palestinians upgraded their status to observer state at the U.N. in 2012.
Abbas closed by saying there can be no peace, no security, no stability, no coexistence in our region without an end to the occupation.
We will not bow down. We will not surrender. We will not compromise. And we shall triumph, he said.
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10:15 a.m.
Pope Francis has urged world leaders to use the coronavirus emergency as an opportunity to reform the injustices of the global economy and perverse logic of the nuclear deterrence doctrine, saying increased isolationist responses to the worlds problems must not prevail.
Francis laid out his appeal for greater involvement and influence of the United Nations in protecting the poor, migrants and the environment in a videotaped speech Friday to the United Nations General Assembly, held mostly virtually this year because of the pandemic.
Francis said the world has a choice to make as it tries to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis and address the grave economic impact it has had on the planets most vulnerable: greater solidarity and multilateralism, or a self-retreat into greater individualism and elitism.
He said: We never emerge from a crisis just as we were. We come out either better or worse. This is why, at this critical juncture, it is our duty to rethink the future of our common home and our common project.
Francis is expected to lay out further his vision for the need for solidarity in the post-COVID world in an encyclical to be released Oct. 4.
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