Queen urges U.N. peace role
Talk to world body, visit to 9/11 site highlight day
NEW YORK – Queen Elizabeth II challenged the United Nations to fight global dangers by “waging” peace, then entered ground zero on Tuesday for the first time to honor the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Back in New York after more than three decades, the 84-year-old British monarch turned her eyes toward the future of the World Trade Center: new skyscrapers rising over what was once smoldering debris that had buried loved ones forever.
“We are not here to reminisce,” she told the world body earlier Tuesday. “In tomorrow’s world, we must all work together as hard as ever if we are truly to be United Nations.”
She arrived at the 16-acre site in lower Manhattan late Tuesday afternoon with her husband, Prince Philip. In silence, Elizabeth laid a wreath of flowers on an iron pedestal near the footprint of the south tower.
Then the queen met dozens of family members and first responders who had lost loved ones as the twin towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.
“The queen just was asking me about that day, and how awful it must’ve been,” said Debbie Palmer, whose husband, battalion Fire Chief Orio Palmer, was killed. “She said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything in my life as bad as that.’ And I said, ‘Let’s hope we never do again.’ ”
The queen wore a two-piece white, blue and beige print dress with long sleeves and a matching brimmed champagne-colored silk hat with flowers.
Elizabeth left the site in a motorcade to tour the British Garden of Remembrance, built to honor the 67 Britons killed in the attack. She met their families there.
Earlier Tuesday, Elizabeth’s familiar formality graced the U.N. lectern, where she urged members to spearhead an international response to global dangers, while promoting prosperity and dignity for the world’s inhabitants.
“It has perhaps always been the case that the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all,” she said.
“In my lifetime, the United Nations has moved from being a high-minded aspiration to being a real force for common good. That of itself has been a signal achievement.”