Secretary-General's remarks to press after meeting with French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner

We have had a very good consultation on matters of importance at this time. First of all, I do appreciate such a strong commitment and leadership of President [Nicolas] Sarkozy, whose commitment and leadership has been instrumental in bringing the current stage of the negotiation to where we are now and I am counting on the leadership and commitment and support of the French Government so that we will be able to seal a deal in Copenhagen.

The momentum has been created. This is a decisive moment. We must seal the deal. I am encouraged that more than 105 Heads of State and government are committed to participate in the leaders' meeting on the 18th of the month. Our target, our goal, is to have a legally binding treaty [?] as soon as possible in 2010.

But before that, we must have a strong political agreement in Copenhagen. The more ambitious, the stronger agreement we have in Copenhagen, the easier, the quicker the process we will have to a legally binding treaty in 2010, as early as possible. This is our commitment, and I really count on the French Government's leadership and commitment.

We also discussed how to generate and mobilize the necessary financial support. One of the ideas was innovative financing. The French Government has been leading and playing a champion role in generating innovative finance for development and health, and now on climate change, I hope this will be discussed in Copenhagen, as a way to generate financial support in addition to public fundings to be provided by the Governments.

We touched on several important issues –first on the situation in Afghanistan. Again, I appreciate President Sarkozy's leadership here, to hold an international conference on Afghanistan. As a result of his initiatives together with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK and the Federal Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, we are going to have an international conference in London on January 28th. I am sure that that will provide an opportunity to help the Afghan Government to establish, first of all, a strong good governance structure, and also institution building. That will be a very good opportunity for strengthening the compact between the international community and Afghanistan. We touched on the situation in Sudan –we are going through a very crucial, important period, next year, starting with elections; also a referendum to be held in 2011. We will have to make progress in deployment of peacekeeping operations and implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement in Sudan.

We also discussed the situation in Guinea and all these matters of our common concern, and I appreciate the French Government's leadership, and particularly, my dear colleague, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, for his ever strong commitment and leadership. Thank you very much.

Merci.