UN Chief Issues ‘Red Alert’ for 2018

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres. (AFP)
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres. (AFP)
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UN Chief Issues ‘Red Alert’ for 2018

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres. (AFP)
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres. (AFP)

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned on Sunday of threats facing the world in 218, while Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged to “strongly” back the organization.

Guterres said he took office a year ago with an appeal that 2017 would be a year of peace.

"Unfortunately — in fundamental ways, the world has gone in reverse," he said. "On New Year's Day 2018, I am not issuing an appeal. I am issuing an alert — a red alert for our world."

"Conflicts have deepened and new dangers have emerged. Global anxieties about nuclear weapons are the highest since the Cold War," an allusion to the crisis over North Korea's nuclear tests and missile firings.

"Climate change is moving faster than we are. Inequalities are growing. We see horrific violations of human rights," said the former Portuguese prime minister, expressing concern as well over a rise in nationalism and xenophobia.

Nationalism and xenophobia are on the rise, inequality is growing, climate change is accelerating and the world is seeing horrific violations of human rights, he said. Global anxieties about nuclear weapons were the highest since the Cold War.

He suggested that the international community "can settle conflicts, overcome hatred and defend shared values, but we can only do that together."

Guterres was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 2005 to 2015. During his first year in office, he has contended with humanitarian crises in Myanmar, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere.

Guterres urged world leaders: "Narrow the gaps. Bridge the divides. Rebuild trust by bringing people together around common goals."

He concluded: "Unity is the path."

For his part, Xi said on Sunday that China will play its part in defending the international order and combating climate change while working to raise living standards for its own people.

In a New Year speech, he stated that the nation was committed to economic reforms in 2018, the 40th anniversary of the transformation led by Deng Xiaoping, "as reform and opening-up is the path we must take to make progress in contemporary China and to realize the Chinese dream".

In a speech quoted by the state Xinhua news agency, Xi said that by 2020 all rural residents living below the current poverty line should have been lifted out of poverty.

It would be the first time in thousands of years of Chinese history that extreme poverty had been eliminated, he said.

"It is our solemn promise," Xi said.

The president also acknowledged shortfalls in the government's work.

"That is why we should strengthen our sense of responsibility and do a good job of ensuring the people's well-being," Xinhua quoted him as saying.

"The well-being of our people is the Party and the government's greatest political achievement."

On international affairs, Xi said China "will resolutely uphold the authority of the United Nations", actively fulfill the nation's international obligations and remain firmly committed to its pledges to tackle climate change.



Jailed PKK Leader Ocalan Says Armed Struggle with Türkiye Over

FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a poster of jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan during a spring festival of Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir, southeastern Türkiye, March 21, 2025. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a poster of jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan during a spring festival of Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir, southeastern Türkiye, March 21, 2025. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar/File Photo
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Jailed PKK Leader Ocalan Says Armed Struggle with Türkiye Over

FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a poster of jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan during a spring festival of Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir, southeastern Türkiye, March 21, 2025. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a poster of jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan during a spring festival of Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir, southeastern Türkiye, March 21, 2025. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar/File Photo

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), appeared in a rare online video on Wednesday to declare the group's armed struggle against Türkiye over and called for a full transition to democratic politics.

In the recording, dated June and released by Firat News Agency, which is close to the PKK, Ocalan urged Türkiye's parliament to set up a commission to oversee disarmament and manage a broader peace process.

"The phase of armed struggle has ended. This is not a loss, but a historic gain," he said. "The armed struggle stage must now be voluntarily replaced by a phase of democratic politics and law."

The PKK, which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for four decades and is designated a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union, decided in May to disband after an initial written appeal from Ocalan in February.

Since the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984 – originally with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state – the conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, imposed a heavy economic burden and fueled deep social and political divisions.

The video marks a rare and potentially pivotal moment in the long-running conflict, offering what could be President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most significant opportunity yet to seal a political settlement to the Kurdish issue, should his government choose to respond, Reuters reported.

It also comes before PKK militants begin handing over their weapons in groups in northern Iraq's Sulaymaniyah on Friday, in a major step in the process.

Seated in a beige polo shirt with a glass of water on the table in front of him, Ocalan appeared to read from a transcript in the seven-minute video – the first public footage or audio of him since his arrest in 1999. Six other jailed PKK members sat beside him, all looking directly at the camera.

He said the PKK, which has been based in northern Iraq's mountainous regions in recent years, had ended its separatist agenda.

"The main objective has been achieved – existence has been acknowledged. What remains would be excessive repetition and a dead end," he said.

Ocalan added that Türkiye's pro-Kurdish DEM Party, the third largest in parliament and which played a key role facilitating the PKK's disarmament decision, should work alongside other political parties to advance the peace process.

The PKK and DEM expect Ankara to address Kurdish political demands, potentially before weapons in Türkiye are handed over.

Ocalan's message came a day after Ibrahim Kalin, head of Türkiye's MIT intelligence agency, visited Baghdad for high-level meetings with Iraqi officials, the agency said. Kalin had earlier visited Erbil in northern Iraq as well.

Talks focused on strengthening border security and steps toward a "terror-free Türkiye," with the Iraqi government voicing full support for joint efforts to eliminate armed groups from the region.