United States has become ‘real’ United Nations: Donald Trump

New York/Washington: The United States has become the “real” United Nations and the world body has been of very little help in resolving conflicts around the world, President Donald Trump said as he announced that the fighting between Thailand and Cambodia will stop momentarily.

“I am pleased to announce that the breakout fighting between Thailand and Cambodia will stop momentarily, and they will go back to living in peace, as per our recently agreed to original Treaty,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Sunday.

Trump congratulated both the "great leaders on their brilliance in coming to this rapid and very fair conclusion," saying that it was “fast & decisive” as all of these situations should be.

He said the US, as always, was proud to help in bringing the hostilities to an end, as he criticised the UN for its failure in resolving conflicts around the world. He also again claimed credit for ending eight wars in the first eight months of his second term in the White House.  “With all of the wars and conflicts I have settled and stopped over the last eleven months, eight, perhaps the United States has become the real United Nations, which has been of very little assistance or help in any of them, including the disaster currently going on between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump said.  The United Nations must start getting active and involved in world peace, he added.

Trump is set to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Palm Beach, Florida, residence on Sunday for talks on a peace plan to end the conflict with Russia.

Trump has been critical of the UN and its failure to maintain international peace and security, slamming the world organisation as he addressed global leaders during the UN General Assembly high-level session in September this year.   “It's too bad that I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them. And sadly, in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help in any of them,” Trump had said from the UNGA podium.

The fighting between Cambodia and Thailand is among the eight wars that Trump has claimed he settled, along with the conflicts between India and Pakistan, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia and Armenia and Azerbaijan.   

Fighting resumed between Cambodia and Thailand on December 7, with the UN noting that "strikes have increasingly been reported further from the border and into each other’s territories.” The US on Saturday welcomed the announcement from Cambodia and Thailand on reaching a ceasefire that halts hostilities along their border following the General Border Committee meeting.

Washington urged the two nations to immediately honour this commitment and fully implement the terms of the Kuala Lumpur Peace Accords.