United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to visit Auckland for first time since 2019

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters (left) and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (right). Photo / Supplied

The head of the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit Auckland on Friday.

The visit will be Guterres’ second visit to New Zealand as Secretary-General. His first was in 2019 when he visited in the wake of the March 15 terror attacks on a wider tour of the region.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters confirmed the visit in a post to X (Twitter) saying the Government was “looking forward to welcoming United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Auckland for a short visit later this week”.

Guterres will later travel to Tonga for discussions with Pacific leaders as part of the Pacific Islands Forum, Peters said.

Guterres, who served as the Prime Minister of Portugal, was elected Secretary-General in 2016, beating New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who was also in the running. He took office in 2017.

Peters, who was Foreign Minister during Guterres’ first visit has spent time with him both here and in the Pacific before.

He met Guterres in New York earlier this year on his visit to the United Nations. In a statement at the time, Peters said his discussion underscored the “crucial role that the United Nations must play” in helping the Pacific to meet the challenges of climate change and development.

The pair met in New York, following Peters’ address to the UN general assembly, in which he accused the Security Council of failing to act decisively in response to the conflict in Gaza.

Peters said he Guterres also discussed calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, a topic that is likely to come up again this week.

At the time, New Zealand was wavering on sending its regular payment to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) a UN organisation supporting Palestinian refugees. UNRWA was implicated in the Hamas attacks on Israel after it was alleged some UNRWA staff were connected to Hamas, the organisation that carried out the October 7 attacks on Israel.

A recent UN investigation was not able to independently authenticate information used by Israel to support the allegations made against UNRWA staff, however the investigation did find that nine staff “may have been involved in the 7 October attacks”. Those staff had their contracts terminated.

Peters confirmed earlier this year that New Zealand’s payment to UNRWA would be made as scheduled.

Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the Press Gallery since 2018.