A total of 140 world leaders and representatives from 53 additional countries are gathering at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York this week for the annual high-level meeting, with multiple active wars, the climate crisis, and the risks of runaway artificial intelligence casting a long shadow over the session. The week-long diplomatic marathon opened on Tuesday, 23 September, with the traditional first address delivered by Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, followed by US President Donald Trump.

Key Conflicts Dominating the Agenda

The Gulf Conflict, the Ukraine War now entering its fifth year, the Gaza situation, and the Sudan civil war — described in some quarters as being of genocidal proportions — are expected to dominate the discourse inside the General Assembly chamber. Beyond the battlefield crises, delegates will also grapple with artificial intelligence governance, climate change, terrorism, and persistent global hunger and poverty.

This year's session carries the theme: 'Restoring trust, managing transformation: A UN that delivers for all' — a phrase that reads as both aspiration and quiet admission of the institution's struggles. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman, elected as General Assembly president for the current session, will preside over proceedings from the high rostrum.

Sideline Diplomacy: Where the Real Action Lies

Observers note that the formal speeches — often laced with national boasts and recriminations, but occasionally offering genuine insight — represent only the visible layer of the high-level week. The substantive outcomes, analysts argue, tend to emerge from bilateral and multilateral meetings held in missions, hotels, and the temporary cubicles erected in UN hallways.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, speaking to reporters, underscored this point: 'I think we must take profit of this week to allow for a large number of meetings between those leaders that are relevant in the context of the crisis that we are facing.' Guterres also noted: 'I would remind you that last year, there was a very important meeting of the United States with a number of Muslim countries that led to the peace plan for Gaza.'

Even Trump — a persistent critic of the UN — acknowledged the session's diplomatic utility, telling reporters that the formation of the Board of Peace for Gaza flowed from last year's sideline encounters. It is a rare moment of alignment between the US president and the multilateral body he has frequently questioned.

Notable Absences and Striking Presences

Three of the world's most powerful leaders will not address the Assembly in person: Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, President Xi Jinping of China, and President Vladimir Putin of Russia. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will deliver India's address on Saturday.

Xi's absence is particularly striking given that he is travelling to the United States this week — he is scheduled to meet Trump in Washington on Thursday — raising questions about the diplomatic signals Beijing chooses to send through its engagement at the UN. Putin's absence is consistent with his pattern since the Ukraine invasion.

Among those who will be present, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian is set to address the Assembly a day after Trump — a charged sequence given that the two nations are on opposing sides of the Gulf Conflict, now in its seventh month. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky will also take the podium, representing a country fighting for its sovereignty into a fifth consecutive year of conflict.

Gaza, Palestine and a Visa Controversy

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to address the Assembly on Thursday, where he is widely expected to defend his government's actions in Gaza — actions that have drawn broad international condemnation. In a development drawing separate criticism, the United States denied a visa to Palestine's President Mahmoud Abbas, effectively shutting him out of the session. The move adds a fresh diplomatic flashpoint to an already fraught week.