Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I send my best greetings to all who have gathered in Vienna to celebrate forty years of the International Peace Institute. Since 1970, the United Nations, the IPI and its predecessor the IPA, have worked closely together in seeking to prevent and resolve armed conflict. Ours has been a natural partnership that has brought two worlds together -- the world of officialdom with the world of independent research, the world of carefully articulated positions with the world of open-minded reflection. We have both been enriched as a result.

Successive Secretaries-General, beginning with U-Thant, have greatly valued the presence across First Avenue of an institution committed to the principles of the United Nations, and the many frank discussions we have had about the challenges of the day. I thank IPI President Roed Larsen, his staff and the Board of the Institute for their exemplary work.

The selection of peacemaking and peacekeeping as the topic for this anniversary seminar summons up memories of your first President, Major General Indar Jit Rikhye of India, who invested enormous energy in helping to train and prepare civilian and military peacekeepers for service with the United Nations. Four decades later, UN peacekeeping is at a level of deployment that perhaps even he could have scarcely imagined. I look forward to learning about the results of your deliberations.

As Honorary Chair of the IPI's Board of Directors, I thank the Government of Austria for hosting this seminar, and I wish the Institute every success in the years ahead.