Address by President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali President of the Republic of Tunisia to the 20th ordinary session of the Summit Conference of the Arab League Council
( Damascus, March 29-30, 2008 )
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
Your Excellency President Bashar Al-Assad,
Your Majesties, Your Excellencies, Your Highnesses,
Your Excellency Secretary-General of the League of Arab States,
Distinguished brothers,
It is my distinct pleasure, at the beginning of my address, to express to my brother His Excellency President Bashar Al-Assad my sincere thanks and deep gratitude for the warm welcome and generous hospitality extended to us since we arrived in this great land which has been, throughout history, a great shining civilizational beacon. To the brotherly people of Syria we wish sustained progress, glory and invulnerability, under the wise leadership of its President.
We have noticed, since we arrived in this hospitable country, various aspects of comprehensive progress, and we wish to pay tribute to the remarkable efforts exerted by His Excellency President Bashar Al-Assad to provide the best conditions for the success of our Summit .
I also would like to express my sincere consideration and to pay tribute to our brother the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, for his active contribution, all along his chairmanship of the previous session of our Council, to activate joint Arab action, and to defend our Nation's causes and serve its interests.
My thanks are also due to His Excellency Secretary General Mr. Amr Mussa, for his sustained and diligent endeavors to enhance the role of the Arab League and to bring it up to the level that meets our peoples' aspirations.
Distinguished brothers,
Our Summit is being held within highly critical regional and international conditions. We are indeed faced with major challenges and stakes that require us to show vigilance and to intensify coordination and consultation, so that we can acquire the ability for steadfastness, promote our capacities, protect our interests, and guarantee our peoples' future.
We hope this Summit will be marked by a sense of entente and consensus, so that we can find optimum ways to address the issues on our agenda. We also hope this Summit offers a new opportunity to close our ranks, and to promote cooperation, complementarity and solidarity among our peoples.
No doubt the Palestinian Cause ranks always first among our priorities, and remains a source of great concern for us, especially in these critical conditions in which Israel escalates its aggressions against the brotherly Palestinian people, through the unfair blockade it imposes on this people, and the huge human and material losses it causes, along with the complete destruction of infrastructure.
The persistence of this dangerous and tragic situation requires us all to confirm our unwavering support to the Palestinian people and to its just cause, to increase our political and material support to this people, and to take a firm position of solidarity that enables it to overcome its plight, to recover its legitimate national rights, and to establish its independent state.
In this regard, we renew our call to the international community, particularly to the influential parties, to provide the necessary international protection to the Palestinian people, to act immediately to put an end to settlements as well as to collective punishment, belligerent practices and unilateral policies, as they all constitute a serious threat to peace efforts in the region.
We also exhort all the concerned parties to join efforts in order to materialize the choice of peace, to adopt dialogue as the path to solve current problems, and to resume negotiations on the basis of international references, the Arab Peace Initiative, and the results of the Annapolis Conference, especially that the situation in the region cannot bear any further tension and strain.
In the same context, we express our solidarity with, and firm support to, sisterly Syria and Lebanon , so that they fully recover their occupied territories and live in peace and security.
Distinguished brothers,
We are carefully following the political crisis in sisterly Lebanon . We hope our Lebanese brothers will manage to overcome this crisis, thanks to their customary commitment to consensus and national unity, in order to protect their country against the dangers of dissension and internal strife, and ensure stability and invulnerability for their people.
We also reaffirm our solidarity with the brotherly Iraqi people, hoping it will manage, in the nearest future, to recover its security, assert its sovereignty, and devote its efforts to the reconstruction of its country, while preserving its territorial and national unity.
On the other hand, sisterly Sudan is currently witnessing political developments that call for optimism. We hope these developments constitute a positive step on the road to achieving comprehensive national reconciliation and strengthening the bonds of entente and harmony among all members of the Sudanese people.
Distinguished brothers,
The encouraging achievements we have accomplished in promoting joint Arab action and enhancing the process of development and modernization in our countries confirm the importance we attach to implementing the objectives we have committed ourselves to achieve in the decisions issued during the Tunis , Algiers , Khartoum and Riyadh Summits. They also reflect our determination to pursue the process of reform and modernization, taking into consideration the challenges and stakes we have to meet.
In this context, we have been keen on establishing a pilot Arab Plan for human rights education for the period 2009-2014, proceeding from our belief in the need to disseminate human rights culture, and to anchor human rights principles and education in our societies, in a way consistent with our cultural and civilizational heritage and our noble universal values.
We also express our optimism for the launch of the Arab Peace and Security Council, hoping it constitutes an additional element for promoting the system of joint Arab action, and for establishing security and serenity in our region.
On this occasion, we renew our call to the international community to join its efforts in the fight against terrorism which has now become a trans-continental threat, and constitutes a flagrant violation to the sovereignty of states and to all UN conventions and charters. Tunisia was indeed among the first countries to have warned against this scourge and to have called for addressing it in accordance with a comprehensive preventive method based essentially on removing its root causes and eliminating the conditions conducive to its emergence and propagation. We have also called for holding an international conference, under the United Nations auspices, to formulate a collective strategy for the fight against terrorism, and to establish a code of ethics in this field, to which all parties shall be committed.
Tunisia has constantly been keen on promoting cooperation with all sisterly and friendly countries, in order to strengthen the foundations of security, peace and solidarity in the world, to promote commitment to international legality, to find just and equitable solutions to outstanding international problems, to promote common universal values and virtues, and to establish channels of communication, entente and complementarity among all civilizations, cultures and religions.
In this regard, we renew our call for promoting a constructive dialogue with others, a dialogue based on consensus, mutual respect and equitable partnership. We also stress the need to undertake all possible efforts to highlight our distinctive cultural specificities and
our great contributions to universal civilization, and to establish an efficient plan of action at the intellectual and informational levels, in order to redress erroneous views concerning our culture and civilization, and stand against the various falsehoods and misrepresentations targeting religions symbols and sanctities.
Distinguished brothers,
The activation of the system of Arab economic and social action can only prompt us to find appropriate ways to remove the obstacles impeding the achievement of integration and complementarity among our economies, to accelerate the process of establishing the Arab common market, and to engage in a fruitful cooperation in order to consolidate our competitive capacity in the face of regional and international economic groupings.
In this context, we welcome the Arab Economic and Social Summit that will be hosted by sisterly State of Kuwait early next year. This Summit will constitute an important landmark for establishing a permanent, solidarity-based development partnership that can help achieve prosperity and invulnerability for our countries.
In light of the enormous revolution our world is currently witnessing in the scientific and ICT fields, we renew our call for the need to master modern knowledge and sciences, to disseminate digital culture in our countries, and to further upgrade our societies so that they can join the knowledge-based economy.
We consider the Arab Information and Communications Technologies Organization, which launched its activities at the end of last year, a basic source of support to our diligent endeavor to keep up with the knowledge and scientific development and to reduce the digital divide separating us from advanced countries.
To conclude, I hope our Summit will come out with decisions and recommendations that can help promote joint Arab action, and further strengthen the relations of cooperation and complementarity among our countries; thus materializing our peoples' aspirations and meeting the various challenges confronting us.
I wish to reiterate the expression of my thanks to His Excellency President Bashar Al-Assad for his kind hospitality and his determination to provide best conditions for our proceedings. I wish him all success in chairing the 20th session of our Council, and hope the Summit succeeds in achieving the objectives for which it is being held.
Thank you for your attention.
I HOME I
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