UN General Assembly
2007

Six years ago, in September 2001, we, the representatives of the international community, stood united and in solidarity in the face of international terrorism. In all our languages, faiths and cultures, we expressed our condemnation of any terrorist act that targets innocent civilians. We denounced and deplored such acts, then resolved to work seriously to combat this grave and alarming phenomenon. We agreed to work earnestly, not only to deal with terrorism from a security perspective, but also to achieve long-awaited breakthroughs in the old crises and conflicts, which because of their complexity and longevity have overwhelmed the desperate and the hopeless in our particular region. Those conflicts fuel people’s sense of injustice and despair and push them into the ranks of those who espouse dark extremist ideas that consider violence as the only means of operation and even sometimes as an end in itself. We were all prepared for action. There was a widespread belief in the Middle East region that major breakthroughs were imminent, that the successful containment and eradication of international terrorism