Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina

I would like to thank the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for convening this meeting and reflecting the high priority that the United Nations has given to Sudan. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which is fundamental and indispensable for peace and stability in Sudan, reaches a critical stage. In less than four months, the referenda that will determine the future shape of the Sudan will take place.

I would like to thank you, President GÜL, and the delegation of the Republic of Turkey for convening this high level meeting in order to make a strategic review of the Security Council’s growing role in the maintenance of international peace and security. I would also like to thank the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for his excellent presentation.

It is an honor to participate in this High Level Meeting on Millennium Development Goals. Allow me to express my gratitude to Dr. Ali Adussalam Treki for having ably presided over the General Assembly during the past year, and to congratulate Mr. Joseph Deiss on being elected the new President of the General Assembly.

It has been sixty-nine years since the historic decision to rebel against the Fascist and Nazi occupiers and domestic collaborators in then Yugoslavia, aligning the peoples of these territories, primarily the Serbian people, with the victorious antifascist coalition in the Second World War.

I have talked with many family members of the Srebrenica genocide victims, wondering what their message to convey to you today would be. Everyone, without exception, emphasized truth and justice, and no one mentioned revenge. After terrible losses and suffering caused by their malefactors, such a position towards it astonishes us with its civility and human kindness.

It is an honor for me to greet you all here tonight. At the outset I would like to express our deep gratitude for your support for the candidacy of Bosnia and Herzegovina for non-permanent seat in UN Security Council 2010-2011 at the elections that will be held in two days in UN General Assembly. Allow me to underline the fact that my country gained support as the sole candidate from Eastern Europe, and I would like to use this opportunity to thank these countries for their trust. Your presence here tonight

It is a great honor to address you here today at the presentation of the First semi-annual report on Monitoring of the European integration process of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is highly commendable that the civil society is monitoring the work of BiH institutions throughout the stabilization and association process, especially if the findings are based on arguments and if they are possible to discuss during such event which gathered people from all walks of life.

This is the first time that Bosnia and Herzegovina, as an independent state, attends this Summit at its highest level. As part of the non aligned Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a country that was one of the co- founders of the Movement, we inherited the values of non-alignment, and we are proud of that. Although in recent history, Bosnia and Herzegovina was faced with the most daunting and fierce challenges, it has remained committed to the fundamental principles of the Non Aligned Movement, and

To our neighbours, notably Serbia, we send out the following message: we do want good neighbourly relations, but it will not be achieved fully until Serbia admits responsibility for the crimes committed by former Belgrade regime while Ratko Mladic is still at large and Serbia prosecutes our defenders.

Today's gathering is being held in the light of three great challenges standing before our countries: one of them being the global financial and economic crisis with serious consequences for our economic development, the second one being the global problem of safe supply in all kinds of energy, and the third one, the challenges of the new enlargement of the European Union to the South-East of Europe, along with all dilemmas accompanying the process.