US:Russia's role in Georgia and its stance on Iran will dominate at the UN assembly this year, writes Mary Fitzgerald, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
WORLD LEADERS will gather at UN headquarters in New York tomorrow for the first day of the body's annual General Assembly debate, an event expected to be dominated by the fallout from the recent crisis in Georgia and the perennial controversy over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Growing tensions between western powers and an increasingly assertive Moscow will colour the 10-day session, the first major international meeting since Russia invaded Georgia last month.
Setting out US priorities for the 63rd annual general assembly last week, Washington's ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad expressed concern that the Georgia fallout may further entrench fault lines within the 15-member Security Council and influence Russian co-operation on issues such as Iran's atomic programme.
Russia will be represented at the general assembly by foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who will meet Minister for Foreign Affairs Michéal Martin in Dublin today en route to New York.
Mr Lavrov, a former Russian ambassador to the UN, gave what was considered a low-key speech to the assembly last year, but his statements this week will be parsed for further clues as to Moscow's intentions.
Tomorrow's opening session will feature speeches by US president George Bush and his Iranian counterpart, and nemesis, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It will be Mr Bush's eighth and final address to the general assembly and observers expect it to be very different to the bullish swagger that typified several of his previous appearances at UN headquarters.
In what has become something of an annual ritual, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's arrival will be marked by protests on the streets of New York.
He will also face opprobrium within the UN, as frustration mounts following the failure of diplomatic efforts to resolve the stand-off over Tehran's nuclear programme.
Foreign ministers of the six powers dealing with the issue - Britain, France, the United States, Russia, China and Germany - are due to meet on the margins of the assembly on Thursday to discuss prospects for a fourth round of sanctions over Iran's refusal to cease uranium enrichment.
At the weekend, however, Moscow made clear that it opposes further sanctions, stressing instead the need to draw Tehran into "constructive dialogue".
Mr Ahmadinejad is expected to address the issue in his speech to the general assembly, in addition to making Iran's case for a seat on the Security Council. Tehran is lobbying Muslim states and its allies in the Non-Aligned Movement to support its bid for a non-permanent seat. The position, currently held by Indonesia, becomes vacant in January.
Meanwhile, the vexed issue of UN reform promises to be a recurring theme in the next 12 months following a strident address by the new president of the general assembly, Nicaragua's Miguel d'Escoto, last week. The former Sandinista priest floated radical proposals to trim the wings of the Security Council and give more power to the assembly.
He urged that this general assembly "go down in history as the 'Assembly of Frankness'".
Recent geo-political developments and the continued roiling of global financial markets threaten to overshadow the theme set by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon for this year's general assembly debate. Mr Ban planned to focus on reaffirming and bolstering commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight targets addressing poverty, disease and gender inequality intended to be met by 2015.
But UN reports this month paint a poor picture of progress so far, showing how traditional donor countries including the US, Japan and some EU members have already reneged on aid pledges. The economic crisis isn't helping. Mr Ban is "deeply concerned" about the impact it could have on realising the MDGs, his spokeswoman said last week.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen, along with Minister for Foreign Affairs Michéal Martin and Overseas Development Minister Peter Power, will attend a high-level plenary meeting on the MDGs on Thursday. Prior to that, all three will help launch the Hunger Task Force report at UN headquarters.
The report, which draws on the expertise of more than a dozen Irish and international development specialists, will recommend ways in which the Irish Government can further contribute to global efforts to combat food insecurity.
Mr Martin will meet his counterparts from countries including Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Serbia and Saudi Arabia for bilateral discussions on the margins of this week's debate before addressing the general assembly next Monday.