President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Once again let me welcome the Secretary-General to Liberia, both him and his team. We would like to thank them for the support which Liberia continues to receive from the United Nations system.

We know that it is the peacekeeping force that has enabled us to make this transition from conflict to peace. We now work with them as we try to move towards achieving our development agenda.

We thank the Secretary-General for this vote of confidence by his visit, to be able to reinforce with his team the support of Liberia's development effort. We continue to work towards moving Liberia forward, towards a process where we achieve sustainable peace, growth and development.

The UN is a strong partner to Liberia in this regard, and this visit is a demonstration of their support for all that we are doing to respond to the needs of the Liberian people.

Mr. Secretary-General, once again, we welcome you, and we thank you for the strong partnership which we continue to receive from the United Nations.

SG:Let me start by thanking the President and the Government and the people of Liberia for the warm welcome that has been reserved for us, my wife, my team and myself.

And, as the President said, we are working as a team. We have a strong United Nations team here, not only the peacekeepers and the police, but a strong civilian component led by Alan Doss working with the government to ensure effective recovery and reconstruction.

We were delighted to be able to assist. It was an honour and a duty to work with the Liberian people to get to where we are today. And we will continue to support your efforts to rebuild this wonderful nation.

And obviously you cannot do it in isolation. We also need to work with the neighbouring countries to stabilize the sub-regional environment so that you can consolidate the peace that you have achieved, in the full knowledge that the neighbourhood itself is also transforming itself, and that eventually you will be able to work with your neighbours on a sub-regional basis to move the economic development of this region forward.

I think the government, which has been in office for a relatively short time, is doing extremely well. We are very pleased with our cooperation and pleased with what I have seen. And I think the international community has a great deal of confidence and goodwill towards this government. And I am pleased that the Security Council has lifted the sanctions on timber, and we will be looking at the one on diamonds over time and I am sure that would also be lifted. But there are certain conditions which will need to be fulfilled and we did discuss this morning with the President and her team and we look forward to continuing our wonderful cooperation.

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