Europe

Muchas gracias, Señor Ministro.

Señores y señoras, buenas noches.

Es un gran placer de estar en España.

Muchas gracias por su hospitalidad.

It is a great pleasure for me to be back in Madrid. I thank the Spanish government and people for their commitment to the ideals of the United Nations.

Through its current membership on the Security Council, Spain is helping the world to address the most urgent issues on the international agenda, as has been explained by Foreign Minister [José Manuel] García-Margallo.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and Maestro [Daniel] Barenboim.

It is a pleasure for me to welcome today United Nations Messenger of Peace, Maestro Daniel Barenboim and members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

For the past nine years, Maestro Barenboim has used his extraordinary talent and commitment to promote peace and tolerance, the core values of our Organization, as a United Nations Messenger of Peace.

It is a pleasure to be here in Geneva once again at the Human Rights Council.

This Council is a vital guardian of human rights. Your mechanisms give victims and human rights defenders a venue, a vehicle and a voice. Your reports draw the attention of the world to abuses committed in many countries and situations.

Your expanding programme is testament to the growing authority of your work over the past ten years.

The Council has shown flexibility and courage in dealing with difficult issues that other bodies have been reluctant to tackle.

It is a great honor and a very moving experience that I am standing on the same podium where 70 years ago our founding fathers of the United Nations were gathered to talk about the future of our world right after the terrible and tragic consequences of the Second World War.

Thank you, Prime Minister David Cameron. Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Never has the international community raised so much money on a single day for a single crisis.

Your Excellency Prime Minister David Cameron,
Your Excellency Chancellor Angela Merkel,
Your Excellency Sheikh Sabah Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah,
Prime Minister Erna Solberg,
Your Majesties and Royal Highnesses,
Distinguished Heads of State and Government,
Honorable Ministers,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you for being here.

This is the fourth time we have come together to show our solidarity with the people of Syria and the region.

Your Excellency Dr. Federico Trillo-Figueroa, Ambassador of Spain to the United Kingdom and President of the IMO Assembly, Secretary-General Kitack Lim of IMO, Distinguished delegates, Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to visit IMO once again.

Let me first congratulate Mr. Kitack Lim on his assumption as Secretary-General of IMO in January this year.

Now there are two Korean Secretaries-General in the UN system!

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge,
Distinguished Faculty Members,
Distinguished Guests,
Dear Students,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.

The United Nations office in Geneva is the second largest United Nations headquarters, only next to United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Thank you for all your strong support to the United Nations, including your very generous support for the Strategic Heritage Project which will make this very historic UN building sustainable and environmentally hospitable.

Switzerland is also the birthplace of international humanitarian law.

Thank you very much. I am happy to be back in Switzerland. We just had a very meaningful session at the Annual Conference of Swiss International Cooperation.

As I said in my speech, Switzerland is a very valuable Member State of the United Nations supporting the United Nations, the global values of peace, development and human rights, this is the birth place of international humanitarian law.