An Evening with Lakhdar Brahimi
In a career spanning sixty years as a diplomat, Lakhdar Brahimi has seen it all. From his time as the Foreign Minister of Algeria to postings as a United Nations Special Envoy in South Africa, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, and most recently in Syria, Ambassador Brahimi has worked his entire life towards a goal of global peace. On November 9, the ambassador spoke to a small gathering of journalists at the Beijing offices of the China International Publishing Group about the Syrian conflict and the small glimmer of hope for the future that has come from the recent peace talks in Vienna. On the failings of the UN member states, some more so than others: The most important mission of the United Nations to keep, or try and keep, to preserve, peace and security, and when peace is broken to try and restore it. That is why the United Nations exists. It is a very, very big responsibility. And a few people try and move the responsibility to the Secretary-General, but in fact the Secretary-General has a very different responsibility. The responsibility [for peace] is with the member states, not the Secretary-General. So, as you know, I was involved in many of these situations of conflict, and we have made progress only when there was real, strong support from the […]
Nov 13, 2015