UNITED NATIONS (AP) — World leaders will open their annual meeting at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday in the shadow of growing global divisions, major wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan and the threat of a even larger conflict throughout the Middle East.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres previewed his opening “State of the World” speech to presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and ministers at Sunday’s “Future Summit,” saying “our world is going off the rails – and we need tough decisions to get there.” back on track.

He highlighted conflicts “raging and multiplying, from the Middle East to Ukraine and Sudan, with no end in sight” and the global security system, which he said is “threatened by geopolitical divisions, nuclear positions and the development of new weapons. and theaters of war.

He also cited huge inequalities, the absence of an effective global system to respond to emerging, even existential, threats, and the devastating impact of climate change.

A standout moment from Tuesday’s opening meeting: U.S. President Joe Biden’s likely final major appearance on the world stage, a platform he has relied on for decades.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters last week that the U.S. goal in the Assembly would be to end the “scourge of war,” lamenting that about 2 billion people are living in conflict-affected areas.

But she also said: “The most vulnerable around the world are counting on us to progress, to bring change, to bring them a sense of hope. »

Other speakers on the opening day include Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, King Abdullah II of Jordan and new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The Iranian leader on Monday accused Israel of seeking to widen the war in the Middle East and of setting “traps” to drag his country into a wider conflict. He highlighted deadly explosions of pagers, walkie-talkies and other electronic devices in Lebanon last week, which he blamed on Israel, as well as the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, a few hours after Pezeshkian’s inauguration.

“We don’t want to fight,” the Iranian president said. “It is Israel that wants to drag everyone into war and destabilize the region. … They take us to a point where we don’t want to go. Iran supports both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

The chairman of the International Rescue Committee, David Miliband, recalled that at the San Francisco conference in 1945, at which the UN was created, then US President Harry Truman had pleaded with delegates to reject the principle that “might makes right” and reverse it to “might makes right”. which was enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.

“Nearly 80 years later, we have seen the terrible consequences of failing to turn this equation around,” Miliband said. “In contexts like Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, might makes right. »

In the face of growing global humanitarian needs, uncontrolled conflict, unmitigated climate change and growing extreme poverty, Miliband challenged world leaders, asking: “How will you strengthen, not weaken, the principles of the Charter of the United Nations for the next 80 years?

The assembly’s annual meeting, which ends September 30, follows the two-day Future Summit, which adopted a plan to bring together the world’s increasingly divided nations to meet the challenges of the 21st century, from conflicts and climate change to man-made disasters. intelligence and women’s rights.

The 42-page “Pact for the Future” challenges the leaders of the UN’s 193 member countries to turn their promises into concrete actions that make a difference in the lives of the planet’s more than 8 billion people.

“We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink,” Guterres said.

By adopting the pact, leaders opened the door, he said. “Now it is our common destiny to get through this ordeal. This requires not only agreement, but also action.

At last year’s United Nations global gathering, Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, took center stage. But as the first anniversary of the deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel approaches on October 7, the spotlight will certainly be on the war in Gaza and the escalation of violence on the Israeli-Lebanese border, which now threatens to spread to the Middle East. East.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to speak Thursday morning and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon.

Zelenskyy will be in the spotlight twice. He will speak Tuesday afternoon at a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council convened by the United States, France, Japan, Malta, South Korea and Britain, in which should be attended by foreign ministers. He will also address the General Assembly on Wednesday morning.