Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday stressed the need for building a peaceful world based on partnership urging all to use their resources in ensuring universal sustainable development abandoning arms races.
“At this critical juncture (during the Covid -19 period) in the world, I urge the people to use their resources to achieve universal sustainable development without spending resources on arms races. Let us go down in action, committed to universal peace,” she said.
She was addressing the closing ceremony of the two-day “World Peace Conference-2021” in city joining virtually from her official Ganabhaban residence here. A 16-point Dhaka declaration was adopted at the conference.
The conference started on Saturday at the Hotel Intercontinental in the capital on the Birth Centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Golden Jubilee of the country’s independence.
Sheikh Hasina said that over the past two years, the coronavirus pandemic has plunged the entire world into a new crisis.
“This crisis has proved that none of us are separate. There is no alternative to building an accountable world order based on the partnership to live peacefully in this world,” she said.
The prime minister said that Bangladesh is always ready to work with all based on mutual respect and understanding to fully embrace the ideals of peace of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
She continued: “We made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, and through it, we realized the value of peace and the deepest aspirations of the entire human race. As always, we have unwavering support for the just demands of the Palestinian people.”
Despite the limited resources, Sheikh Hasina said that Bangladesh has provided temporary shelter to more than 1.1 million Rohingya forcibly displaced from Myanmar adding, as a result, it has been possible to avoid a major humanitarian catastrophe in the region.
“We are pursuing peaceful diplomacy to repatriate the Rohingya to their homeland,” she said.
A video message from the former prime minister of the UK James Gordon Brown was also aired at the closing ceremony.
Goh Chok Tong, a Singaporean former prime minister, Irina Georgieva Bokova, a Bulgarian politician and the former Director-General of UNESCO, and Husain Haqqani, a senior fellow, and director for South and Central Asia at Hudson Institute, also addressed the concluding session.
Representatives from 50 countries including Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the UN; Jos, Ramos-Horta, former president of East Timor, spoke at the inaugural ceremony of the conference, both virtually and in person.
President of the Organising Committee of the World Peace Conference-2021, Speaker of the Jatiya Sangsad, Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, Foreign Minister Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen, MP, and State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Md Shahriar Alam, MP, spoke on the occasion at the Hotel Intercontinental.
Earlier, the theme song of the World Peace Conference-2021 and an audio-video presentation on the event were screened at the function.
