The main topics of discussion included peacekeepers in the Donbass region of Ukraine and the war in Syria.

The U.N. general debate took place at the U.N. headquarters in New York from September 19 to September 25, 2017. Heads of states and foreign ministers from nearly 200 countries gathered for the event.

Conflict escalation on the Korean peninsula, U.N. peacekeepers in the Donbass region of Ukraine, and talks over the Syrian civil war were the priority subjects that the Russian delegation headed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov raised during the week of the United Nations General Assembly.

The Russian delegation’s bilateral agenda was likewise booked up, as the Russian Foreign Minister held dozens of meetings with individual country representatives on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. As far as Russian-American relations are concerned, Minister Lavrov’s negotiations with the U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were the central event of the General Assembly. The talks were held against the backdrop of a continuing diplomatic standoff between the two countries. Russian officials also held meetings with the U.N. Secretary General António Guterres and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Minister Lavrov also sat down with the Foreign Minister of France Jean-Yves Le Drian.

Sixth meeting with Tillerson

Negotiations with the U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson were one of Minister Lavrov’s main bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Earlier this year, the two held meetings in Bonn, Hamburg, Moscow, Washington, D.C., and Manila.

The diplomats’ discussion centered on de-escalation zones in Syria, including the last of them in Idlib, whose creation Minister Lavrov announced on the eve of his visit to New York; the Ukrainian crisis with a possibility of sending U.N. peacekeepers into the country; North Korea’s rocket launches; as well as a host of bilateral problems. The discussion of Sergey Lavrov and Rex Tillerson lasted 45 minutes.

Russia and the U.S. have committed to reducing the degree of violence in the country and to creating conditions for returning to the Geneva peace talks that were taking place from January to July 2016.

The sixth round of negotiations between Minister Lavrov and Secretary Tillerson, took place against the backdrop of the diplomatic brouhaha surrounding the functioning of diplomatic missions in Russia and the U.S. On August 31, the U.S. imposed new restrictions on Russian diplomatic missions, closing down the Russian Consulate General in San Francisco and Russia’s trade missions in Washington and New York. These blocked properties were then subjected to de-facto searches by American authorities. The Russian side has said that the United States’ actions will impact the operations of U.S. diplomatic missions in Russia. Russia has also said that it planned to file legal challenges to seek the return of the diplomatic property.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov explained that the reduction in staff levels at U.S. diplomatic missions makes the number of U.S. diplomats in Russia equal to the number of Russian diplomats in the U.S.

According to the Deputy Foreign Minister, one should not expect an immediate additional reduction of the number of American diplomats. At the same time, the Deputy Minister noted that the number of U.S. diplomats in Russia equals the number of Russian diplomats at Russia’s U.S. missions, as well as at the Russian mission at the U.N.

Deputy Minister Ryabkov noted that Russia may reduce the number of U.S. diplomats in the country in parity with the number of Russian diplomats at Russia’s U.S. missions without the extra credit for the diplomats stationed at the U.N. in the event “outrageous” acts, such as the seizure of the San Francisco consulate and the Washington, D.C. trade mission continue. Deputy Minister Ryabkov made those statements during a meeting with the Under Secretary of State Thomas Shannon in Helsinki.

DPRK resolution

The adoption of one of the toughest resolutions sanctioning North Korea, U.N. Security Council resolution 2375, coincided with the opening of the 72nd session of the General Assembly. However, in the days following the Security Council’s action, North Korea made yet another launch of a ballistic missile that flew over Japan and had the estimated flying range to reach the island of Guam, where a U.S. naval base is located.

At the same time, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un said that the process of creating the North Korean nuclear forces was almost complete. On September 15, 2017, the U.N. Security Council at an emergency meeting condemned North Korea’s actions, with the United States’ calling for lining up a united front and Moscow’s emphasizing the importance of starting substantive negotiations on conflict settlement.

The U.N. Security Council resolution called for returning to the six-party talks, a format which was not utilized since 2009. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel talked about reverting to the six-sided talks during a recent telephone conversation between the leaders. The German Chancellor emphasized that the experience of negotiating with Iran in a multi-party format could be put to use in resolving the North Korean problem. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, in his turn, stated that Russia found the idea to be of interest, all the while realizing that there are very few similarities in the cases of Iran and North Korea. At the same time, the Russian diplomat is convinced that some other mechanisms besides sanctions are needed to effectively respond to Pyongyang’s provocative actions.

Progress on Syria

A multi-party session aimed at forming a contact group on Syria was an important part of the General Assembly week.

“We consider that it is important to enter into a political phase of resolving the conflict in Syria. The question on this contact group and its format will be discussed by the five permanent members of the Security Council,” the new French ambassador in Russia Sylvie Bermann stated.

Just prior to the General Assembly week, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, the chief three Astana talks participants, reached a consensus on the way to move forward on Syria, and the four Syrian de-militarization zones had been agreed upon. One of the zones where the parties coordinated setting up checkpoints and ceasefire enforcement areas is the Idlib province.

The U.S. still has not officially commented on the results of Astana-6 rounds of negotiations; however, on the eve of the group’s making its final decision, Secretary Tillerson called Foreign Minister Lavrov to discuss Syria.

In New York, the U.S. Secretary of State and the Russian Foreign Minister spoke about further steps to coordinate de-escalation zones, although the specific arrangements have not been announced to the general public.

The results of the Astana-6 peace process were put before the U.N. Security Council as an important component of the Syrian settlement. Following the United Nations meetings, the United Nations envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura set the date for the next stage of Geneva negotiations as November 28, 2017. Mr. de Mistura attended the General Assembly to hold meetings with representatives of all countries that have influence on the Syrian settlement process.

Peacekeepers in the Donbass region of Ukraine

The Ukrainian question and the proposal to place U.N. peacekeepers in the breakaway Donbass region was another hot discussion topic at the general political debate of the U.N. General Assembly.

In early September, Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin said that he supported the idea of sending U.N. peacekeepers to Ukraine, but only for the purpose of ensuring the safety of OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) staff. Furthermore, Russia’s position is that the peacekeepers have to be on the line of demarcation dividing Ukraine and the Donbas region, as opposed to any other territory. At the same time, as the Russian President’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said, Russia’s stance on the deployment of peacekeepers in Ukraine is flexible. The U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, said that in the event the parties reach agreement on deploying the peacekeepers, the international organization will be ready to participate in resolving the Ukrainian crisis.

Representatives of the U.S. have said on a number of different levels that the idea of placing a U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Eastern part of Ukraine is worthy of consideration, noting however that peacekeepers need to be granted a wide mandate.

Officials in Kiev also insist that the U.N. mission has to be deployed throughout the entire territory of the Donbass up to Ukraine’s border with Russia. The Kiev government has refused to engage in direct negotiations with the Donbas and the Lugansk authorities. The Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko brought up the question of peacekeepers in his September 20 speech before the U.N. Security Council.

Moscow and Kiev presented competing drafts of Security Council resolutions on introducing U.N. peacekeepers, and consultations on the two documents are still ongoing.

In addition to addressing the U.N. General Assembly, President Poroshenko met the U.S. President Donald Trump and other representatives of the U.S. administration, including Pentagon officials. These bilateral contacts exerted a negative impact on the discussions of the peacekeeping mission deployment with other Normandy format participants, i.e., Russia, France, and Germany.

U.N. Reform

Initiatives aimed at reforming the United Nations were also up for discussion at the high-level meetings of the U.N. General Assembly.

On September 19, 2017, the U.S. President Donald Trump met the Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres and the Chairman of the United Nations General Assembly Miroslav Lajčák.

President Trump promised support to the Secretary General’s efforts to reform the United Nations. The reforms are predicated on three pillars: peace and security, development, and management reform.

President Trump criticized the United Nations for its large budgets that have not resulted in increased efficiency. The U.S. President also noted that the United States is the largest contributor to the U.N., and called for a fairer distribution of the financial burden among the member countries. At the same time, he did not speak of reducing U.S. financing, adding that the U.S. would consider its investments justified if the U.N. fulfils its functions.

The United States came out with a non-binding declaration in support of United Nations reforms that any country was able sign. Almost 130 countries signed the U.S.-sponsored declaration.

The Permanent Representative of Russia at the U.N. Vasily Nebenzya stated that Moscow will not sign the declaration advocating U.N. reform. The Russian official noted that even though a number of ideas that the U.S.-sponsored declaration contains correspond to what the Secretary General of the United Nations advanced earlier, a declaration cannot result in changing the U.N.

Mr. Nebenzya emphasized that the U.N. needed to be reformed by means of an intergovernmental process.

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Russia supported the idea of reform and the adaptation of the organization to today’s realities, all the while emphasizing continued commitment to upholding the intergovernmental nature of the U.N. and the principles of the separation of powers underlying the U.N. Charter.

“We support the realistic initiatives to optimize the activities of the U.N. General Assembly. The major task is to improve the working methods and to streamline the overloaded agenda. Any innovation must be rational and strictly correspond to the existing distribution of prerogatives among the U.N.’s main bodies.” Ms. Zakharova said.