The UN General Assembly started yesterday the proceedings for its 73rd session, under this year’s theme “Making the United Nations Relevant to All People: Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Peaceful, Equitable and Sustainable Societies”. Keeping with tradition, the General Assembly held a plenary session dedicated to peace, ahead of the General Debate.

Minister Bushati commented in a media communication that the meeting is held at a very important moment when multilateralism and cooperation across the world are quite often challenged. It is therefore necessary for the United Nations not only to be more present in the conflict zones but also to guarantee the implementation of development programs that minimize the gaps between certain regions of the globe.

During the proceedings of the UN General Debate, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Ditmir Bushati will attend a series of activities focusing on preservation and strengthening of international peace, protection of human rights, creating equal opportunities for sustainable economic development. Minister Bushati will simultaneously have several bilateral meetings on the margins of the Assembly. Beside the bilateral relations between Albania and other countries to be discussed during bilateral meetings, Bushati will also seek their support for our country’s candidacy for a non-permanent seat in the Security Council for the period 2022-2023.

“Albania is participating this year at the UNGA with the ambition to become soon a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. Our communication with partners and countries that know Albania or know a little about Albania has just started, in order to fulfill this objective of our foreign policy,” underlined Minister Bushati.

Albania also supports UN reform which aims and is expected to make the Organization more responsive towards the needs of certain countries by making it less bureaucratic, as well as to respond to the challenges of a world which seems to find it hard to reach its equilibrium.

During the first day of his stay in New York, Minister Bushati held several bilateral meetings. He met his Turkish counterpart, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, discussing bilateral political, economic and trade relations, further possibilities for cooperation between Albania and Turkey, as well as regional and international issues. He also met his Rwandan counterpart Luise Mushikiwaabo, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kuwait,Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamd Al-Sabah, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Gambia, Mamadou Tangara, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Moldova, Tudor Ulianovschi. Cooperation in international organizations and mutual support were discussed about in these meetings, underlining the will and the interest to continue this cooperation.