Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Secretary of State John Kerry at the United Nations on Thursday. It was his first official visit.
By RICK GLADSTONE
Published: July 25, 2013
Secretary of State John Kerry made his first official visit to the United Nations on Thursday to discuss three of the world’s most intractable crises: the turmoil in Africa’s Great Lakes region, the Syrian war and what he called “the granddaddy of them all,” the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Appearing briefly at a welcoming ceremony with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that was streamed on the United Nations’ Web site, Mr. Kerry thanked Mr. Ban for his organization’s work, particularly in dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis, which has sent hundreds of thousands of people into neighboring Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. Mr. Ban, in his remarks, said more than 100,000 people had been killed in the conflict, now in its third year. “We have to bring this to an end,” Mr. Ban said.
Mr. Kerry, who toured the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan last week, spoke of the “enormous levels of suffering” among Syria’s civilian population and said there was “no military solution” to the conflict. He reiterated his joint commitment with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, to convene a Syria peace conference in Geneva.
Leading a delegation that included a former Senate colleague, Russ Feingold, whom he appointed as his special envoy to the Great Lakes region last month, Mr. Kerry’s main order of business at the United Nations on Thursday was to lead a special Security Council meeting on the protracted conflicts in the area that he said had been “beleaguered by targeted, egregious violence.”
The Great Lakes region includes Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the mineral-rich eastern section of the Democratic Republic of Congo, an area of recurrent fighting, atrocities and no government authority. Millions of Congolese have been killed since the 1990s in chronic mayhem and pillaging carried out by armed groups vying for control of the area’s abundant resources.
In March, the Security Council authorized a new “intervention brigade” of United Nations peacekeepers in Congo, for the first time authorizing offensive military action to pacify the region. But it remains troubled.
The 15-member Council issued a statement that called on “all countries of the region neither to tolerate nor provide assistance or support of any kind to armed groups.”
Mr. Kerry’s main preoccupation in recent weeks has been to broker a resumption of peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, which could start next week in Washington. In his remarks with Mr. Ban, Mr. Kerry did not specify a date. But he called the Middle East challenge “the granddaddy of them all, I guess, the question of the possibility of peace between Palestinians and Israelis.”
Later in the day, Mr. Kerry met privately with a visiting delegation of the Syrian opposition coalition, which the Obama administration has pledged to support with military aid. But administration officials are increasingly concerned about the coalition’s fractiousness, rebel losses in the battlefield, the growing role of radical Islamists in the insurgency and the increasing confidence of President Bashar al-Assad, diminishing any incentive for him to engage in peace talks.
The recently elected leader of the opposition coalition, Ahmad Assi al-Jarba, said in a statement after the meeting that he understood the administration’s concerns but that “we need American direct support to save democracy in Syria and to lead the world to force Assad at last to stand down.”
A version of this article appeared in print on July 26, 2013, on page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Kerry, at U.N., Discusses Crises in Africa, Syria and Mideast.
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