Transcript of the Press Briefing by the Spokesperson of the President of the UN General Assembly 

(20 May 2025)

 

 

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s briefing. 

 

Good afternoon, everyone

With regard to the current humanitarian situation in Gaza, the position of the President of the UN General Assembly, H.E. Mr. Philemon Yang, is clear – the UN must be able to provide urgently needed humanitarian assistance in a safe, rapid and unhindered manner in line with international law and international humanitarian law.

The UN General Assembly adopted two resolutions on 11 December 2024 which both demand (i) the facilitation of full, rapid, safe and unhindered entry of humanitarian assistance to and throughout the Gaza Strip and its delivery to all Palestinian civilians who need it and (ii) that Israel comply with all its legal obligations under international law, including to take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, in full cooperation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip.

This week

Yesterday there was the second informal interactive dialogue of the Assembly on the implementation of the Pact for the Future which focused on the mnitoring and evaluation of implementation efforts. President Yang, in his remarks, said that looking ahead, we know that the Pact for the Future mandates a high-level implementation review in 2028 and that this will require clear evidence of progress, especially at the national level. He added that a focus on monitoring and evaluation will help Member States identify bottlenecks and enablers, ensure ongoing course correction and promote accountability across systems.

Intergovernmental consultations on the political declaration on the Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons also took place yesterday.

And today, as you all know, the High-level plenary meeting to address the human rights abuses and violations being committed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea started this morning and should end at 1 pm.

There will be an informal interactive dialogue of the Assembly on Culture and Sustainable Development tomorrow, 21 May. This dialogue will provide an opportunity for Member States, Observers and relevant stakeholders to give due consideration to the contribution of culture to the achievement of sustainable development through national, regional and international development policies and international cooperation instruments.

The high-level interactive dialogue will consist of an opening segment, a plenary segment, and a panel discussion. The meeting will be open to Member States and Observers, the United Nations system, and ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organizations.

Informal consultations on the “World Social Summit” in 2025, under the title “the Second World Summit for Social Development” take place on 23 May.

There is a Preparatory meeting of the High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution on 23 May as well. I know some of you have been asking when the Conference takes place and to confirm that the High-Level International Conference will be held on 17 to 20 June.

Next Week

There will be an informal plenary of the General Assembly on 27 May at 3 pm to hear a briefing by the Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean Pierre LaCroix and Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Rosemary Di Carlo on the review on the future of all forms of UN peace operations

Informal consultations on the World Social Summit in 2025 take place again on 28 May

To flag that there will be the second of a series of press briefings organised by the Office of the President of the General Assembly on 29 May. The first one was on the UN Security Council Reform. This one will be on AI governance and what is happening at the UN.

H.E. Ms. Maritza Chan Valverde, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the UN and H.E. Hector Jose Gomez Hernandez, Permanent Representative of Spain to the UN, both co-facilitators to identify the terms of reference and modalities for the establishment and functioning of the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, will update journalists at that time.

There will also be an informal meeting of the plenary on the intergovernmental negotiations on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and other matters related to the Council on 29 May.

A meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Revitalization of the work of the General Assembly will be held on 30 May.

Announcements

Happy to share with you a Programme of activities to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the UN

  • First of all, there will be a historical Exhibit from June to September 2025 in the Visitors Lobby.
  • A General Assembly plenary meeting will take place on UN Charter Day, 26 June
  • And there will be a High-Level meeting of the General Assembly on 22 September

We will share more details shortly.

Finally, as you know, President Yang has made multilingualism a central priority of his work. In this regard, we would like to share that – thanks to the collective efforts of Member States – in addition to translations in the six official UN languages, the Pact for the Future has now been translated into 31 other languages. A dedicated UN webpage is being developed to showcase this.

Questions and Responses

Question: In two weeks, 2nd June, the General Assembly will vote on a new PGA. I wonder if you already know how that process will take place. Is that normally something that goes without a vote, I forgot the word..how you do it without a vote…

Response: They will pass a vote on it but it will be by simple majority.

Question: But I guess that means there will be a slide of countries and you can see how they are voting, correct?

Response: Sorry, it is by acclamation. It should be by acclamation. As far as I know, it is going to be by simple majority but it is one candidate that we have here so it should be by acclamation.

Question: If a country then would say we actually want a normal voting process, that is in their right, I guess. Then it would be, what you say, then it would be a simple majority.

Response: Let me get more details and come back to you on that.

Note: With a request of any Member State for a vote, the election of the PGA will proceed with a secret ballot, instead of “acclamation”

Question: You mentioned a meeting this Friday about the Palestine Two-State solution Conference. Is it a public meeting?

Response: Yes, it will be webcast.

Question: Thank you. I have a question on PKK, the Kurdish group. PKK say it’s laying down arms and disbanding itself in Turkey. So you know, there’s a peace negotiation between Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers Party. What is the GA comment or assessment on that? Thank you.

Response: Well, as always, the President of the General Assembly always welcomes, you know, anything that has to do with achieving peace. So at this point in time, he is encouraging that negotiations continue to happen. and there’s peace between these two parties.


___

 

Media Contacts

Sharon Birch, Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly, Tel: +1 212 963 0564, M: +1 646 342 5873, Email: birchs@un.org

Dr. Mariam Shaikh, Adviser/ Social and Digital Media/Media Relations, M: +1 917 361 4990, Email: mariam.shaikh@un.org