Readout of the President's Call with United Nations Secretary-General-Designate António Guterres

President Obama spoke by phone today with United Nations Secretary-General-designate António Guterres to congratulate him on his recent election and affirm that the United States will work closely with him when he assumes leadership of the United Nations on January 1, 2017. The President pledged our continued assistance on U.N. efforts to address a wide array of global challenges, including climate change, forced migration, sustainable development, nonproliferation, humanitarian assistance, conflict prevention, peacekeeping, and promoting respect for human rights. He also stressed the importance of strengthening U.N. reform efforts, including ensuring effective and accountable peacekeeping and strengthening and modernizing U.N. institutions.

The international community is asking more of the U.N. today than ever before, from negotiating ends to conflicts, deploying peacekeepers to protect, mitigating threats from climate change, responding to humanitarian catastrophes, and providing urgently-needed assistance to refugees and other vulnerable migrants around the world. As a founding member and host country of the U.N., and as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, the United States is firmly committed to continuing our longstanding, strong support of U.N. efforts to make a more peaceful, secure and prosperous world.