UN General Assembly
1999

May I first congratulate you, Mr. President, on your election to this responsible position. I am sure that your vast knowledge and experience are a guarantee of the success of this session. I avail myself of this opportunity to express my most sincere congratulations also to the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, for his contribution to strengthening the role of the United Nations in line with the challenges of the modern world. I am going to spare the Assembly the review of this year's international developments that it probably anticipated, because I come from a region that has generated enough bad news and is still the focus of world attention. Some of the developments in our region were not the result of human will. The earthquakes in Turkey and Greece, which claimed tens of thousands of victims, shook the world. Regrettably, man-made disasters have taken a high toll on our region. The war in Kosovo, the fourth in a row in the former Yugoslavia, has left in its wake a comparable trail of tragedies.