United Nations Peace Bell Ceremony on the International Day of Peace 2025

Peace
A simple word with only five letters.

A word that people in this country, as in many others, just take for granted.

Meanwhile, in other countries, it’s one of the deepest longings.

Peace.

A principle on which the United Nations was founded.

One enshrined in the Charter as our collective aspiration never again to return to the scourge of war.

And yet, looking across the world, 

Dear Secretary General,

Dear Deputy Secretary General,

Undersecretaries 

Looking across the world from Gaza to Sudan to Ukraine and beyond —we have not succeeded.

Some argue: if the United Nations has failed time and again in its greatest promise of peace, is it still worth upholding the Charter?

Such a view is not only cynical. 

It is irresponsible.

Would there be less war without the United Nations?

Definitely not.

This is not the moment to give up.

It is the moment to try even harder.

As Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”

And therefore, 

This International Day of Peace may be more important than ever.

With this year’s theme “Act Now for a Peaceful World” we affirm that we not only believe in peace but will act to uphold it.

We will work harder to bring the most vital of all things—the word with five letters, peace—to every corner of the globe: to Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and especially the most forgotten conflicts. 

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Haiti, in Myanmar, and Yemen.

I thank the Permanent Mission of Japan not only for their support in organizing this annual gathering but also for reminding us, on this day of peace, that we also mark eighty years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And with that, we are reminded that nuclear proliferation remains an additional danger to peace, and thereby to humanity. 

To all of us. 

When I visited Nagasaki, I learned from schoolgirls how the horrors of the bombings 80 years ago still linger because they have been passed down from generation to generation. 

Making them, the granddaughters of the victims of Nagasaki and Hiroshima some of the strongest advocates for peace today.

And it is more than symbolic that we are joined, again as I have learned, by the schoolchildren: the students of the Tarumi Violin Program.

Drawn from across New York’s diverse communities, these young musicians carry a message of love and harmony to global audiences and have been called musical ambassadors of peace.

So with every ring of the Peace Bell, and also in the presence of the daughter and - as we have learned just a couple of minutes ago – grandson of the person who donated the bell to us, let us be reminded that peace is not only a simple word of five letters—it is our greatest responsibility, for our children and future generations.

END