At a time when world continues to suffer due to the coronavirus pandemic, India’s primary concern still remains border dispute with its neighbouring countries including Pakistan and China.
Addresing the hybrid press conference, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a resolution to the matter and urged the countries to move in a specific direction to sort our differences at border.
The UN chief also emphasised the need of multilateralism, saying the world needs to come together to combat the novel coronavirus. He also mentioned that finding the cure of the infection should be first and foremost focus as the virus does not “respect borders”.
“The virus is the number one global security threat in our world today. The international community needs to come together to defeat the virus”, Xinhua news agency quoted the UN chief as saying.
“We need a vaccine to be affordable and available to all – a people’s vaccine. That means a quantum leap in funding for the ACT-Accelerator and its COVAX Facility. For any vaccine to work, people across the globe need to be willing to take it,” said the secretary-general, adding that “with the spread of the virus, we are also seeing a proliferation of misinformation about a future vaccine.”
“This is fueling vaccine hesitancy and igniting wild conspiracy theories,” he mentioned.
Talking about the security situation in a number of countries, the UN chief said, ” we must seize every opening in the weeks ahead and make a new collective push for peace. My appeal resonated with member states, civil society and a number of armed groups across the world.”
“And today, from Afghanistan to Sudan, we see hopeful new steps toward peace,” he said. “In Syria, Libya, Ukraine and elsewhere, ceasefires or standstills in the fighting can create space for diplomacy,” he added.
