Ban Arrives In France To Address Council Of Europe

Secretary-General Arrives In France To Address Council Of Europe

New York, Oct 18 2010 4:10PM

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived today in Strasbourg, France, where he will address the Council of Europe tomorrow on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights.

He will also give a speech at a plenary session of the European Parliament.

Mr. Ban was in Marrakesh, Morocco, over the weekend, when he addressed the World Policy Conference organized by the French Institute of International Relations ("http://www.ifri.org/"IFRI).

His speech highlighted three main themes: the need to pull together for the poor and vulnerable; the need to pool our energy and resources to stave off the climate catastrophe; and the need to work together on a host of new-generation challenges.

The Secretary-General met yesterday with King Mohammed VI in Rabat, the capital, where the two leaders discussed Morocco’s progress towards achieving the anti-poverty United Nations Millennium Development Goals ("http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/"MDGs), the fight against climate change, terrorism and regional peace.

He also met with Djibril Bassolé, Joint African Union-UN Mediator on Darfur, who briefed him on efforts to bring all sides on board a peace process in the western Sudanese region, which has been devastated by seven years of war between Government and rebel forces.

Mr. Bassolé said he was working with the two sides on a global agreement, which he hoped would be endorsed by the groups that have stayed away from the process so far. Mr. Ban welcomed this progress but stressed that, for the agreement to be sustainable, it had to be all inclusive and address the root causes of the problems.

ENDS

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