Greeting at the Opening Ceremony
24th Annual Plenary Session
2 May 2006
King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Center
Dead Sea, Jordan
By Ingvar Carlsson, Co-chair
Your Majesty, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and
Gentlemen,
With a deep sense of gratitude to the Government of
Jordan, I am opening the 24th Annual Meeting here at the
Dead Sea.
I would first like to introduce my colleagues to all of
you. Would you please stand up as I call your name?
Of course, next to me is your former Prime Minister and
the Organizing Chairman of the 24th session, Dr. Abdel
Salam Majali.
Sitting in the first row are:
Our Honorary Chairman, Helmut Schmidt, former Chancellor
of Germany
Mr. Andreas van Agt, former Prime Minister of the
Netherlands
Mr. Esko Aho, former Prime Minister of Finland
Mr. Valdis Birkavs, former Prime Minister of Latvia
Mr. Jean Chretien, former Prime Minister of Canada
Mr. B. J. Habibie, former President of Indonesia
Mr. Jamil Mahuad, former President of Ecuador
Mr. Andres Pastrana, former President of Colombia
Mr. Yevgeny Primakov, former Prime Minister of Russia
Mr. Jerry Rawlings, former Prime Minister of Ghana
Mr. Jose Sarney, former President of Brazil
Dr. George Vassiliou, former President of Cyprus
Some members had to cancel their participation at the last
minute. My co-chairman Kiichi Miyazawa and our Honorary
Chairman Malcolm Fraser, in particular, are extremely
sorry that their health did not permit them to be with us.
Kiichi Miyazawa sent us a message to you, which I would
like to read to you, as he says what I wanted to say:
His Majesty, Mr. Chairman, Distinguished guests, Dear
Colleagues,
Allow me to greet to you through a message. I am truly
grateful that so many distinguished personalities have
gathered by the Dead Sea, in Jordan, for the 24th annual
meeting of the InterAction Council.
I would like to first of all express my profound
appreciation, on behalf of the InterAction Council, for
the good will, generosity and hospitality of His Majesty
the King Abdulla bin Al-Hussein, the Government of Jordan
and its Foreign Ministry.
I am personally sorry not to be with all of you, as it has
long been my wish to visit the Middle East, and I was
hoping against hope that my doctors would permit the
fulfillment of my long-held wish.
I have long had a personal curiosity to visit the
birthplace of the three monolithic religions and to
observe with my own eyes the legacy of ancient
civilisations. I have read the holy books of the three
Abrahamic religions and have been deeply struck to realise
how all of the three share the common origin. It would
have been deeply satisfactory, if I could at least sense
the causes of the complex ambivalence felt by believers of
each.
Let me briefly point out what the InterAction Council has
prioritised over the past quarter of a century since its
inception. The priorities are:
- peace and disarmament,
- world economic well being
- nexus of development, population, environment and global ethics
The Council has always studied various long-term, global
issues with advice of experts in these fields, and we have
proposed realistically feasible solutions to our
successors. After over two decades, many world leaders
today heed attention to our policy recommendations.
The issues we prioritise, in fact, are applicable to every
part of the world. But their relevance to the
conflict-prone Middle East seems much stronger. This
region attracts more global attentions than any other
regions of the world.
Even within the last couple of months, the launching of
the Hamas Government in Palestine, the Olmert Government
in Israel, the moves surrounding nuclear suspicions over
Iran, the continuous violence in Iraq and ever rising
oil prices and other complicated issues have been on the
mind of many.
The particularly disturbing nuclear question, of course,
is not confined to this region. It appears that the world
is moving in the opposite direction of nuclear
non-proliferation, as we look at the controversial nuclear
development in North Korea and the recent U.S.-India
agreement.
Herein lays the particular significance of your
deliberations this year. It is the first time the Council
is addressing the whole issue of the Middle East and
hearing directly from regional players their convictions
and proposals for peace, stability and progress in the
Middle East. The timeliness and significance of the
meeting cannot be overemphasised. It will prove to be one
of the most important meetings we have held.
An increasing number of people seem to feel that the
ominous clash of civilisations is gaining reality. It
would be dangerous, however, to interpret the caricature
incident of earlier this year as a sign of the inevitable
clash between Islam and Christian civilisations or between
the Arabs and the West.
The caricature conflict proved that the proposals we made
in our "Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities"
was appropriate for today's world. I hope the Council will
once again renew its effort to advocate and disseminate
the Declaration.
So, very urgent issues overwhelm the 24th annual meeting.
I hope very much that the Council will come up with a
powerful message to the world to reaffirm the ethics of
humanity, reverence for all life, mutual respect,
tolerance and understanding as the basis for all human
interactions, be it among individuals, societies or
nations.
Thank you very much for your attention and let me extend
my very best wishes for a fruitful and constructive
meeting.
So, now I would like to call on Jan Eliasson, the
President of the 60th Session of the UN General Assembly
who concurrently serves as the Foreign Minister of Sweden,
who kindly agreed last year to deliver the keynote speech
on the “Present State of the World” and has fulfilled his
commitment, despite his extremely busy schedule due to the
dual roles in Stockholm and New York.
Jan Eliasson, please...