By KUNA,
United Nations : Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday wrote a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in support of the latter’s proposal to hold an expanded emergency G-8 Summit later this year to discuss the need to respond “urgently and decisively” to the international financial crisis, his office said in a statement.
Ban’s letter was sent following a meeting of the two officials earlier today on the sidelines of the Francophonie Summit in Quebec City to discuss the matter.
They both agreed during the meeting on the “need to respond urgently and decisively” to the international financial crisis, and that a “global initiative should be undertaken, in a swift and concerted manner, to address the crisis and its serious impact on all nations, particularly the poorest among them,” the statement added.
Ban expressed his support to the proposal Sarkozy suggested in his capacity as European Union current President.
He also voiced his appreciation of President Sarkozy’s invitation to the UN Secretary-General and the heads of the World Bank and the IMF to participate actively in the proposed summit meeting.
“Such a format will allow us to more effectively act upon this crisis which requires a global solution through cohesive international partnership,” Ban wrote in his letter to Sarkozy.
Ban suggested holding such a Summit at UN headquarters in early December at the latest.
“I am pleased to offer the facilities of the United Nations Secretariat in New York,” he added, noting that holding the summit at the United Nations, the symbol of multilateralism, will lend universal legitimacy to this endeavour and demonstrate a collective will to face this serious global challenge.
Both officials shared the conviction that the international community “must act together to ensure, above all, that the negative impact of the financial crisis on the world’s economies not undermine the major UN efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, fight against the effects of climate change and address the food crisis”.