At UN for last time, Biden seeks to calm Mideast tension
With four months left in office, Biden stepped up to the green-marbled lectern at the UN General Assembly with wars in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and Sudan still raging and likely to outlast his presidency, which ends in January.
He sought to calm tensions as the nearly year-long war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip now threatens to engulf Lebanon - where Israel targeted more than a thousand Hezbollah targets on Monday.
"Full-scale war is not in anyone's interest, even if situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible," he told the 193-member UN General Assembly.
To a round of applause, Biden called on Israel and Hamas to finalize the terms of a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal put forward by the US, Qatar and Egypt.
"The good news is Putin's war has failed at his core aim. He set out to destroy Ukraine, but Ukraine is still free," said Biden.
"We cannot grow weary, we cannot look away, and we will not let up on our support for Ukraine, not until Ukraine wins with a just, durable peace," he said.
Biden is due to hear from Zelenskyy about a new Ukrainian peace plan when they meet in Washington on Thursday. A US official said the plan is probably much like previous plans calling for more weaponry and support for Ukraine's fight.
Biden said on Tuesday that progress toward peace in the Middle East would put the world in a stronger position to do "with the ongoing threat posed by Iran".
"Together we must deny oxygen to its terrorist proxies ... and ensure that Iran will never, ever obtain a nuclear weapon," he said.
He said the United States was seeking to manage competition with China responsibly so that it would not veer into conflict.
"We stand ready to cooperate on urgent challenges," he said. "We recently resumed cooperation with China to stop the flow of deadly synthetic narcotics. I appreciate the collaboration. It matters for the people of my country and many others around the world."
Biden also had strong words for the leaders of Sudan's warring parties: "End this war now."
CHALLENGES FOR NEXT US PRESIDENT
Biden's UN speech is the centrepiece event of a two-day visit to New York that includes a climate speech later on Tuesday and a meeting on Wednesday with To Lam, the president of Vietnam.
Biden has been eager to deepen relations with the strategic Southeast Asian country and manufacturing hub to counter Russia and China, with which Vietnam also retains ties.
Ukraine and Russia, Gaza, Iran and China all figure to linger on as challenges for the next president, whether Biden's successor is his vice president, Kamala Harris, a Democrat, or former President Donald Trump, a Republican.
Harris' approach to foreign policy is much like Biden's. However, she has struck a tougher tone on the tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths and the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip devastated by Israeli assaults.
Biden has expressed steadfast support for Israel in its drive to eliminate Hamas militants from Gaza but so far has been unsuccessful in his bid to negotiate a ceasefire-for-hostages deal and no breakthrough is in sight.
Under Biden's leadership, the United States has funnelled millions of dollars in American weaponry to Ukraine and rallied NATO solidarity behind Kyiv. But the conflict is largely at a stalemate with Russia hanging on to parts of eastern Ukraine it seized early in the war.