President Donald Trump addressed the general debate of the 81st UN General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York on the 22nd, local time. 'While others talked about peace, I made peace,' he said, listing conflicts he says he mediated in office.

'When others only talked, I acted; when others looked away from threats, I confronted them,' he said. The speech combined a self-image as peacemaker with a stated readiness to use American military power actively when necessary.

Two Messages for Iran

On the same day US and Iranian delegations held three hours of direct talks at UN headquarters, yet the president kept up hard-line remarks suggesting Iran faced a choice between a deal and military consequences. The combination of negotiation and pressure ran through the speech as well.

Passages stressing American influence in the Western Hemisphere also featured; the Kyunghyang Shinmun described them as signalling hemispheric dominance. There was, however, no direct mention of the Korean Peninsula or North Korea.

Reading Between the Lines in Seoul

South Korea's government used the same session to put the resumption of US-North Korea dialogue and a peace regime formally on the agenda. Some read the omission of North Korea as showing that Washington's priorities lie with the Middle East, Ukraine and China; others see it as leaving room for dialogue to resume.