UN/Treaties

The White House on Wednesday applauded NATO's decision to extend by one year the mandate of Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

He can now remain in his post until July 31, 2014.

“The United States commends the Secretary General for his strong leadership of America’s most important security alliance,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement, “and we look forward to continuing to work with him and with our NATO allies and partners as we strengthen and revitalize NATO for the 21st century.”

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Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) will use his ceremonial appointment to the United Nations to urge rejection of a proposed arms trade treaty, he said Wednesday.

“It's an opportunity for me to follow up on some issues I've addressed with [U.S.] Ambassador [Susan] Rice in the U.N. and some issues I have with the U.N.,” Isakson told The Hill in a phone interview from his home state. “So it gives you a chance to at least speak on behalf of the people you represent and on behalf of the country.

“Of what's going on in the U.N. right now, to the rank-and-file American citizen, the arms trade treaty agreement is probably the paramount issue. The message should be strong that we disagree with any U.N. resolution that might infringe upon the Constitution of the United States and the rights that are granted to our people in the Bill of Rights. I think that would be the consensus of the country.”

The U.S. delegation left the floor before the Iranian leader delivered a tirade against America and Israel.

Your morning global affairs speed-read

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is expected to deliver another anti-American and anti-Israeli diatribe when he addresses the United Nations General Assembly today. His speeches to the world body have caused walk-outs by Israel's delegation in the past.

While his speech is largely aimed at a domestic audience, Ahmadinejad's trip to the U.N. is not without critics inside Iran. Prominent conservatives are attacking him for taking 120 people with him on a “picnic” and staying at New York's luxurious Warwick hotel while the country is suffering from unprecedented U.S.-led sanctions, London's Guardian newspaper reports.

In the United States, meanwhile, Iranian-American groups are planning a rally in New York and urging the media to “blacklist” the Iranian leader.

Also speaking on Wednesday: Egypt's president, Mohammed Morsi; Great Britain's prime minister, David Cameron; and Japan's prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda.

Obama says the “violence and intolerance” that occurred in Benghazi, Libya, “has no place in our United Nations.”

Obama will “send a clear message that the United States will never retreat from the world,” a spokesman said.

Your morning global affairs speed-read

President Obama heads to the United Nations today for the start of the 67th General Assembly. The president isn't scheduled to have any face-to-face meetings with any world leaders during his two-day visit, however, preferring to spend more time on the campaign trail.

Instead, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will serve as America's interlocutor with the world. On Monday, she's scheduled to meet with no fewer than four presidents: Pakistan's Asif Ali Zardari; Libya's Mohamed Magariaf; Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai; and Egypt's Mohammed Morsi.

Obama's speech to the world body on Tuesday will be closely watched, coming just two weeks after the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya. Republicans are using the foreign policy crisis to attack the president's national security credentials; Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) penned an op-ed Sunday calling on Obama to come clean about the attack, champion Israel and explain his foreign policy. “The events in the Middle East make it clear that our allies cannot rely on us, and our enemies do not fear us,” the chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee wrote. “By last week, anti-American protests had spread to at least 33 countries around the world.”

Egyptian enigma: Mohammed Morsi arrives in New York for his first trip to the United States as president of Egypt. The former Muslim Brotherhood member told The New York Times ahead of his visit that the United States can no longer expect Egypt to be as compliant to its wishes as it was under Hosni Mubarak, but that the two countries could yet become “friends.”

Iranian bluster: Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is also expected to make news with the kind of blustery opening statements at the U.N. he's delivered in the past. He predicted in an hour-long interview with The Washington Post in New York that there would be no hostilities between Israel and Iran before the U.S. election.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) tried Thursday to pass by unanimous consent a treaty that recognizes the rights of people with disabilities worldwide.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) objected to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a treaty proposed by the United Nations that would require approval from two-thirds of the Senate. 

The United Nations felt obligated to release a lengthy note to the media Wednesday justifying Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's attendance at an international summit in Iran after it came under criticism from the United States and Israel.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland last week urged Ban to boycott the conference, saying Iran would try to “manipulate” the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement “to advance its own agenda, and to obscure the fact that it is failing to live up to multiple obligations that it has to the UN Security Council, the IAEA, and other international bodies.” When it became clear he was going anyway, the State Department urged him to use the opportunity to talk tough to the Iranians.

“In all [his] meetings [with Iranian officials], the Secretary-General conveyed the clear concerns and expectations of the international community on the issues for which cooperation and progress are urgent for both regional stability and the welfare of the Iranian people,” the UN said in a statement. 

“On the nuclear question, the Secretary-General said he has been following closely Iran’s talks with the P5+1. He said he regretted that little tangible progress has been achieved so far during these intensive talks and that the talks needed to be serious and substantive.”

Read the full U.N. statement below: 

Republicans on Tuesday approved a foreign-policy platform that urges the defeat of three treaties the Obama administration had hoped to ratify this year, putting some GOP senators in a bind.

The plank rejects United Nations conventions on the Law of the Sea and on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, both championed by Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.). It also raises concerns with a proposed Arms Trade Treaty, which is still under negotiation at the United Nations after the Obama administration slammed on the breaks last month amid Second Amendment concerns.

“Under our Constitution, treaties become the law of the land,” the Republican plank says. “So it is all the more important that the Congress — the Senate through its ratifying power and the House through its appropriating power — shall reject agreements whose long-range impact on the American family is ominous or unclear.”

The language puts Republicans who support the treaties in a tough spot.