Albania
H.E. Mr. Bamir Topi, President
24 September 2008
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Statement Summary
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BAMIR TOPI, President of Albania, reaffirmed his country’s commitment to a strong and coherent United Nations, capable of tackling the new challenges facing the world. Albania supported initiatives to strengthen collective peace and security towards reaching sustainable and long-term development, while also promoting human rights and international cooperation. Organizational reform would only be possible through cooperation, dialogue and consensus.
The global fight against terrorism’s collective threat required the United Nations to play a very important role, he said. Albania had actively met it obligations and responsibilities in that fight, and would continue to be a stabilizing force in its region. It had contributed peacekeeping troops to United Nations and other security forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Chad.
Having willingly joined the “One UN” programme, he said, Albania was actively working with United Nations agencies to establish new partnerships in the fields of development, humanitarian assistance and combating climate change. It viewed the Millennium Development Goals not only as development objectives, but also as the means of growth. Accordingly, it had integrated the Goals in its national development policies, adding good governance as an additional objective.
Noting the varied threats posed by climate change, he underlined Albania’s modest contributions to reducing its carbon emissions and support of international efforts against global warming. It similarly supported a multilevel, coherent and well-coordinated response to the global food crisis and hailed the creation of the High-Level Task Force charged with meeting that challenge.
He said that Albania would answer the invitation to join NATO with greater responsibility and determination to meet the membership requirements. As it sought to encourage stronger multilateral and regional relationships, it would also promote trust between all of the region’s countries, as well as their full integration into the Euro-Atlantic structures.
Albania considered the founding of the independent and sovereign state of Kosova as the most important historical development in the region since the beginning of the century, he continued. Its creation finally freed the region from the nightmares of war, inter-ethnic conflicts, ethnic cleansing and genocide, and had fulfilled the will of a people of Kosova to break free from political oppression, historical injustices and an inability to develop.
Recognition of the new state was in the interest of Kosova, Albania, Serbia and all of its close and distant neighbours, and of Europe. Stressing that Kosova fully deserved to become a member of the United Nations, he called on the Assembly to recognize and support the Republic of Kosova.
[Source: GA/10751]
