Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annanis a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world." He is the founder and the Chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as being the chairman of The Elders, a group founded by Nelson Mandela...
NationalityGhanaian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth8 April 1938
CityKumasi, Ghana
CountryGhana
I urge all parties to focus on the issue as we get down to the wire in the spirit of give and take, and make the kind of compromises that are necessary to get compromises, so we can move on,
The withdrawal from Gaza should be seen as a first step, because we also have to deal with the issue of the West Bank.
During this election period, maybe there are certain proposals or issues that can not be pushed, and things are going to be at a standstill for a while ... I hope that these elections will go smoothly and we can get back to pressing the parties on the peace process.
creative way of approaching the issue and you may wish to share it widely.
We have a lot of issues on the agenda to discuss and I'm looking forward to the meeting. We will of course discuss the Iranian issue, the situation in Iraq, the Middle East... I would not be surprised if the issue of the cartoons comes up.
If they are not able to resolve it before the summit (in September), the issue is not going to die, ... They will have to pursue it and, I hope, resolve it before we all go away for Christmas.
Obviously if he came in the expectation that he will leave this issue behind us, then it has not succeeded.
Libya has also agreed to a trial in a third country and believes that it ought to be possible to find answers to all other outstanding issues relating to this matter,
Men can make a particular difference -- by being more caring, by taking fewer risks and by facing the issue of AIDS head-on.
This will be our first encounter, ... I have no idea what sort of atmosphere it's going to be, what he is like, how he reacts. Obviously, this is going to be a very difficult discussion. It is an issue that has persisted for 10 years.
And I hope this issue will be handled in a manner that will not escalate. I rely on the wisdom of the two countries to find a way out.
There was never any intention on my part to make Mr. Hansen, Mary Robinson or Larsen part of the team, ... And so I found it rather unfortunate that there has been such public objection to their participation. The issue was never posed.
There were governments that were not willing to make the concessions necessary, there were spoilers also in the group, let's be quite honest about that, ... I've tried to get them to understand that in our interconnected world, we need to look at issues in much broader terms rather than narrow national interests.
It is a serious matter. And we shouldn't forget that the council as a whole got the resolution only last Monday, ... For them to take time and discuss this issue seriously is something we should be grateful for.