get tuned into a meeting of the security council and what you'll often see is not robots well mannered debate but rather accusations and allegations of diplomats just postering for the cameras or is discourse at the un really as dysfunctional as it appears to discuss that i'm now joined by medicine the president of the united nations general assembly for this seventy second session mr president it's so good to talk to you thank you very much for your time thank you for having me and good morning from new york now your term is about to end within the next couple of days a year ago when you just assume that your duties you said in an interview that one of your ambitions for this tenure is going to be overcoming narrow national interest do you think you have succeeded in that. well i feel very strongly about united nations and about the general assembly being the most representative platform and the fact is that we have one hundred ninety three member states they all come here we do their interests with the red lines but at the same time it's

important to understand that. we should not be fighting against each other because we should be fighting together for a better world and this is what i have tried to promote during the session and well i hope we have succeeded at least partly well judging from the pretty adji discussions at the security council during which member states accuse one another of the most horrendous crimes like for example the use of chemical weapons one would think that overcoming narrow national interest is simply an impossible task are you trying to say that within the u.n. corridors when nobody's watching those diplomats actually nicer and more civil to one another than they appear to be on cameras have to say that we never had a nasty discussion in the general assembly hall and again this is a vision we have to of diplomacy that. those are here to defend national interests and at the same time they should respect the other countries' interests and i will

give you one example agreement on the text of global compact on safe orderly and regular migration you know how sensitive the issue of migration is and yet the one hundred ninety two member states were able to agree on this text because they understood that this is a common challenge come on phil phenomenon and we have to act. together to be able to face it but surely you would agree with me that such a display of. a corporation and comradery is not very frequent within the halls of the united nations look at any session concerning iran or syria you would think that you know those people are ready to kill one another nor i disagree i mean we've never heard the discussion in the general assembly that would you know step out of the limits of. what do you expect when new. listening to a diplomatic discussions so there can be heated debates but never turn into insulting the diplomats or countries so i believe that also in this regard the

general assembly is a standard set up here i know that one of the initiatives you launched was the so-called morning dialogues a platform which allows permanent representatives to meet and discuss issues in an informal and perhaps more personal more open the way why does it have to be in the morning don't you think that they could have built a better report after hours especially those after hours happened to coincide with happy hours. you know i'm a career diplomat. and i've been. dealing with this profession for thirty years now and i see that. lately there is less and less space for real dialogue dialogue means you don't read your script but you are rather say what you thing and you find time to listen to the others and to to think about what they have to say and the official schedule of the united nations is so busy that the doors and diplomats

are running from one meeting to the next one and the usually only have time to present their national positions but what is absent here is the dialogue and i do believe the dialogue is the basis of diplomacy and to promote this culture of dialogue i've introduced this morning dialogue series which were received very positively by the ambassadors they've made for most of the requested this morning dialogue to continue after my departure during to seventy third session but mr president fully appreciate your effort to introduce more personalized dimension into the diplomatic discourse and my only question is why does it have to be in the morning rather than in the evening i mean i know that your gods your degree here in moscow i'm sure you know how well russians for example blond over a glass or two and having started in the united states i know for that for a fact that the americans are not so different from us. do you think the idea of happy hours rather than morning dialogues would have produced a better result diplomacy never sleeps and of course diplomats are also meeting

during the evenings they meet for a dinner as they meet for four or four cigar and obviously the informal frameworks so what i proposed in the morning are more formal still informal because the ambassadors are coming into personal capacities no scripts no no texts we have an issue we have a theme and they discuss what they think about it and this is a good rehearsal for the working day so this is not. in contradiction to what they're doing do they bring their own coffee and bagels or is there some special ingredients that your staff is serving them to facilitate you know this is building measures they don't have to bring their own coffee united nations takes care of this so they are served coffee and somebody goes but the most important thing is that they really enjoy. these four months and they engage so actively and it's such a passion that i was myself. surprised very pleasantly now on the serious note that

as far as i understand the idea of allowing diplomats these more personalized space to be less restricted by the product called by a national postering. is ultimately driven by your decided to introduce this human component and i wonder if these human connections even matter in this day and age when the disagreements between member states are so stark when experts seriously discuss the possibility of a direct confrontation between nuclear powers why would these personal connections regardless of how good or bad they are even matter or personal connections are extremely important and the united nations is the best example of it because you have one hundred ninety three member states and they are interacting on a daily basis they know each other they know each other's concerns priorities preferences worries red lines but by understanding each other they are also well

positioned to try to look for compromises and this is how it should work so the fact that they are in the daily contact is a very important prerequisite for their ability to find compromise that from what i understand it is not that the member states to misunderstand or mis communicate with one another it's actually quite the opposite they understand each other perfectly but their goal is often to misrepresent or malign an opponent so much of the international politics these days is about psychological warfare how do. personally navigate through all those accusations and counter-accusations again here in the general assembly we've never been. as down as to you know the personal it is asians on message national accusing us of the us are decent diplomats senior diplomats and they always find a way how to express their disagreement in a way which is not insulting to their partners this is what it is i mean every member state has its legitimate interests and fears and ambitions and red lines and

this is part of the game but does must not prevent us from agreeing on issues that are important for each and every one and for the entire planet and this is i believe the most important understanding that those are not coming into the general assembly hall to win over others but rather to find a platform where everyone can feel comfortable and then we have no losers losers but everyone is a winner well mr president to be honest with you i think from the outside the environment of the united nations seems to be far more toxic than you're describing it from the inside and yet anyway and it is in this environment that these are all free forming the united nations and first and foremost it's peace and security pillar that is now being advanced everybody agrees that the changes are necessary everybody can cite the examples of the veto power being abused by its holders but the question is whether we can all collectively come up with a solution that will make the system more balanced and more representative rather

than more skewed and dominated by one actor or group of actors well first i know. the image of the united nations as a whole is a very much perceived through the riches of the security council which is misleading because the picture is much more complex the second part of your question about the reform yes we all have to evolve we all have to adjust because the world around us is to. n.g. the fact is that the united nations was established nine hundred forty five and reflected the realities of the two year while today we live in two thousand and eighteen and the world looks differently and this will be reflected also in the composition of the united nations security council this is generally acknowledged this is written in number of documents but the question is how so what does it mean when it comes to the veto powers should the number be extended or the term in

office would be extended so there are very heated debates about it but correct i would say diplomatic but very heated ones we also had the continuation of this process doing so in the second session some progress was achieved but it's still a long way to get to a new security goals let me pick up on the point that you just made that the current composition of the security council reflects the world as it was in one thousand forty five it's hard to argue that any a geo politically the world has gone from the multiple direction of the late one nine hundred forty steed the bipolarity of the cold war to the american the union polarity at the turn of the century and i think it's coming full circle again back to multiple areas he. doesn't doesn't that mean that the current security council sat up as deficient as it may be has actually stood the test of time that it is actually the best we have been able to to make it because the world is changing and

we are moving right now from a uni pool of zero to a multiple of old my question is to what extent this process is regulated and organized and debated and second the composition of the security council is deflection of the fact that up until now there was no readiness or ability to agree on how this composition should be changed but i can tell you of the demand for reform of the security council is. very high among the member states obviously that our region such as continent that are not represented. and they make their voice. be heard very loudly. playing very important role nowadays so they also demand that the compositional disagree council reflects the realities of the twenty first century well mr president as i'm sure you perhaps know we russians are very risk averse and nation and there's

a saying here in russia that better is the enemy of the good apparently you disagree with that statement when it comes to the composition of the un security council right it's not about what i think it's about what member states think and say and there are awful documents in which member states call for a more representative security council that will also. of today and this is an official position of the united nations but when this process will be accomplished and how this is entirely in the hands of the member states i'm here to provide a platform i ask at the beginning of the session for this process to be. due to be open transparent credible and i ask for a meaningful outcome and but the outcome is fully in the hands of the members well you know there is there and now the russians saying suggesting that there is nothing more permanent done temporary and i guess that also pretty much applies to the whole process of reforming the united nations anyway let's take

a very short break now we will be back in just a few moments stay tuned. you have manuals we have procedures and everybody knows what to do but where i believe we should be able to do a better job is to act while peace is still there but we see the warning lights flashing we see that situation is developing in the wrong direction and may end up whole conflict and disease where i don't believe we shall use all the tools. of diplomacy and this is what the concept of sustaining peace is about and syria unfortunately is a tragic situation when peace was lost seven years ago and what we have to do now is to bring. this tragedy to its end as soon as possible and to avoid further atrocities and further torture of in innocent people civilians and women and children and of course we are grateful for every effort in that direction be the geneva process be discussed on a process i only hope that the people of c.

of syria deserve to go back to a decent a normal life mr president with all due respect i'm not asking you about the political process which is indeed ongoing i'm asking you about the role that the united nations should play in trying to bring some sort of a reconstruction or rebuilding of basic services to that country and from what we know at least from moscow there is an active. well almost an active conspiracy on the way if you believe the russian diplomats of trying to prevent the process from happening until the political talks are concluded again i want to ask you as a top u.n. diplomat do you seeing any reckon struction should wait until politics is settled or should you actually help the people in sustaining peace i was a prisoner of the general assembly should respect the division of labor and system and issue is in the hands of the security council and also you made a reference to

a document issued by the secretary of so this is between the security council and the secretary there is no role for the general assembly and therefore i don't think i should to make my my comments on this decision does not have been actively doing . and yet i heard you speak very enthusiastically about these building measures and in other countries for example peace house in liberia mediation talks in kyrgyzstan and all those initiatives are extremely important but i would say their fact hundreds maybe thousands of people day reconciliation because reconstruction of syria would have fact millions of people don't you think again that as much as you try to respect the division of powers that it is incumbent on the united nations to be a little bit more hands on to borrow your phrase again in sustaining peace in that country i can tell you the secretary general on. one hundred percent focused and committed his special envoy stuff and the most mr are the same united nations is

ready to do its part but united nations needs a mandate and mandate comes from the member states so i urge all the member states to to provide guidance and to give the mandate to the united nations and to support that this is not happening yet and as a result we see these tragedies on on the ground now the syrian the war has made the issue of international migration. far more pressing than it was before and i know that one of the priorities during your tenure was negotiating what you called a global compact for safe orderly add regular migration why do we need these documents because believe me or not migration is an issue every person on this planet has its own and has been confronted with every person on this planet comes from a country of origin or country of transit or country of destinations or a combination of these and yet we do not have a single multilateral document addressing the issue of migration it may sound

absurd but the reality so the global compact that was agreed by the members of the general assembly is the first multilateral framework addressing the global phenomenon of migration and i think this is a huge achievement that when it comes to manmade disasters including wars there are some countries whose policies contribute to causing mass migration and then there are other countries who are left to deal with the consequences and comply with the international humanitarian law is this document going to address the policies which cause mass exodus is of people especially given how much you appreciate the efforts of preventing the conflicts from broke breaking out. these documents. referring to. the triggers of migration which of course conflicts are among them natural disasters bad governance climate change. pushes people to

move and this document is a realistic one document that says that migration is a reality it's not going anywhere it's here to stay and given the global demographic trends it is most most likely to increase this document does not say migration is good or migration is bad it says migration is here it's a fact of life and let us learn to deal with it let us act together let us mitigate the negative aspects of migration and let us strengthen the positive aspects of migration this is what this document is about now let me ask you a question that me hit the little bit closer to your own home country of slovakia which wasn't very happy with how migration issues were dealt with within the european union it actually succeeded in making the e.u. abandon the mandatory quotas on migrants and shifts you call them called voluntary solidarity isn't that an indication that europe one of the most welcoming continents for migrants so far is recalibrating it's found on the issue well the

issue about migration is still going on in the european union and. is it really created many controversies. i know hope that the adoption of the global compact by the united nations general assembly will help your opinion to formulate its own migration policies and i'm proud to state that one hundred ninety two member states of the general assembly the united nations were able to agree on the text of this document and i do hope that it will serve as an inspiration for individual countries and also. in regions including to the kenyan. now if you allow me one more question about mikey also a little bit quite successfully for a follow rigorous external border protection which essentially means make it much harder for the migrants to reach europe i'm sure you can understand that as a european but as a un official do you think that's the right way to proceed to make it harder for

migrants to reach places of destination it's not about making it harder it's about . implementing policies you know that majority of european union member states are member of the of the zone which is the border free zone but in order to maintain. the external borders of schengen must be protected and obviously european union should know who is entering its territory so to seize this is a policy that has been implemented for years but in recent three four years. in implementation of the so number of member states including my own are asking for implementation of the policy is the way it was defined and the way it was is it was provided for otherwise if members do not have the feeling that external borders are . welcome to control should be. borders between member

states and that's been happening and this is of course and then during the whole function of schengen and mr president if you would allow me i would like to ask you a personal question as well you are a career diplomat you served your country as a foreign minister you served the e.u. you are now wrapping up your term as a top u.n. diplomat and one thing that struck me about your diplomatic philosophy was when you said that you believe in respect having said that how have you found working in the united states where respect seems to be the main thing that is absent from public politics i do believe that respect is one of the key ingredients for successful diplomacy we might have different views but this does not make us better or worse i don't think anyone has a right to lecture other countries or to act is one country or one group of countries is smarter than other group of countries the fact is that we have

different history different mentality different culture and this should be respected and not rejected and i have been living in the united states in the united nations and this is so of course a very international environment and there is no lack of respect on the contrary. you are demonstrating that we can have different priorities but this does not mean that we should have less respect for each other well my question was referring not so much to the international environment within the un building but more so about the american domestic politics i think you would disagree with me that neither the current presidential administration nor its opponents allow each other much respect speaking of which i would like to ask you a question about donald trump who already announced that he intends to chair the security council meeting later this year the new york times ran a story the other days. saying that this provoked

a lot of fears or jitters among the european diplomats you know the un from the inside is that true well i met with president on all trumbo last september when he addressed the general assembly for the first time and peace use of the united nations where rather positive he truly believed that the united nations is a strong potential which is yet to be used fully. and that was rather encouraging yes he's coming in couple of days again to. lead his country's delegation at the high level segment of the general debate and he will cheer the security council meeting go on the twenty sixth of september because this month it's the united states who holds the rotating presidency of the council so which is a rather normal event. obviously it will draw a lot of attention but it is quite usual that the country that holds the presidency in the council is using it during the month of september. also to take advantage of

the presence of of it has all states well mr president it is usual for the country the tears the assembly to hold meetings that's for sure but it's quite unorthodox for they had a state he referred to another had a state as a rocket man on a suicide mission which is something mr trump did last year but i hope that your optimism is well placed anyway we have to leave it there i really appreciate your time with us today thank you thank you very much and i encourage our viewers to keep this conversation going in our social media pages and hope to see you again same place same time here and was a part. of .

last. prosecution will need to become almost. a softball design. where you push off the threat of fines. by the number one perceived to i mean yeah i mean i mean political pressure on the only moon called golden earthworm securely jenison knows what upon your kind of business models he was by american corporations doubt he's sold on good mental disease or use some controls on the scene and the solution. lies up in association. i noted when he saw some dogs it is just simply his ability to maintain an investigative documentary. ghost war on oxy.

me. the two men named by the u.k.'s suspects in the script poisoning case deny any involvement in the incident they've been speaking exclusively to r.t.

. you really look like the pictures shown to us by the u.k. . we're those who were shown to you in the pictures. and i was under pat for all those your real names yes they are our real names u.k. officials have responded to be.