Melania Trump became the first spouse of a sitting world leader to preside over the UN security council.
According to The Guardian, the US First Lady on Monday, March 2, called on member states to protect children’s access to education days after Iranian state media reported that an airstrike killed at least 165 people at a girls’ school in southern Iran.
The meeting, titled Children, Technology and Education in Conflict, had been scheduled before the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday.
The first lady took her seat at the council’s horseshoe table in New York, was greeted by secretary general António Guterres, shook hands with each of the 15 member state representatives and posed for a group photograph before opening the session.
Trump said in her opening remarks, “The US stands with all of the children throughout the world. I hope soon peace will be yours.”
In her speech, the first lady argued that education was fundamental to preventing conflict.
“A nation that makes learning sacred protects its books, its language, its science and its mathematics. It protects its future,” she told council members.
She also made the case for artificial intelligence to be looked at as the new great equalizer, urging the council to “connect everyone to knowledge through AI, including those in the most remote geographic regions of our world”.
She did not address the war or the reported school strike. The Israeli military said it was not aware of strikes in the area, and the US military said it was looking into the reports.
Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the UN, had earlier called it “deeply shameful and hypocritical” for Washington to convene a meeting on protecting children in conflict while simultaneously launching airstrikes on Iranian cities.
