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Mr. President, colleagues, the world is witnessing intertwined changes and turbulence, protracted geopolitical conflicts, widening development gaps, and a growing number of global challenges. Five years ago, at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, President XI Jinping put forward the Global Development Initiative. Since then, he has proposed the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative and the Global Governance Initiative. These initiatives provide strategic guidance for the building of a community with a shared future for humanity. At a time when countries of the world find their future so closely linked, more and more of them want to join hands to shoulder the historic mission of addressing difficulties and challenges and advancing the well-being of all humanity.
Therefore, Mr. President, religious hatred must have no place in this world at all. Mr. president, Pakistan's economic revival remains a defining responsibility of my government and a mission that is very close to my heart. Through difficult, long overdue structural reforms and stringent fiscal discipline, we have restored macroeconomic stability and begun the journey towards sustainable and inclusive growth. We are modernising agriculture and industry, developing mineral resources, digitizing our economy, and equipping our youth with modern AI and IT skills. We are opening new pathways with China through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, as well as with the Gulf, Central Asia and beyond. Here I pay tribute to the visionary leadership of President Xi Jinping for spearheading the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative. On these pillars, we can surely build a shared future for mankind. Mr. president, developing countries are in dire need of timely debt relief, affordable long term financing, and a stronger voice in global financial institutions. Development must receive the same urgency as security. Ladies and gentlemen, is it not an irony of fate that Pakistan contributes less than 1% of global emissions, yet repeatedly bears the horrific consequences of climate change? Developed countries must therefore honour their climate finance commitments without delay, fund loss and damage speedily and ensure support for adaptation and resilience.
We are grateful to the European Union, and in particular to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and to the President of the European Council, António Guterres, for every kind of assistance they have provided to our country. Although full-fledged membership to the European Union remains a strategic priority, we cannot ignore the prolonged enlargement fatigue, both amongst certain EU member states and among the candidate countries themselves. Serbia's European path is a clear illustration of the length and complexity of this process. We obtained candidates' titles in 2012 and opened accession negotiations in 2014, more than 12 years ago. The citizens of Serbia, therefore, rightly expect a clearer perspective and more tangible results from a process in which our country has participated for more than a decade. At a time when the next enlargement of the European Union does not appear likely in the near future, we have sought to remain constructive and to propose practical ways of overcoming the current impasse. We have, therefore, proposed that the Western Balkans be gradually integrated into the EU's single market and granted access to the Schengen area even before attaining full membership in the EU. This would neither serve as a substitute for membership nor diminish our ambitions. Rather, it would provide a concrete and pragmatic way forward, enable the citizens and economies of the region to experience the tangible benefits of European integration and help overcome the deadlock in which the enlargement process has remained for far too long. However, a stable and integrated Europe, of which Serbia is a part, and our European path, do not mean renouncing the traditional friendship thanks to which Belgrade is one of the few European capitals from which one can fly directly to the United States of America, the People's Republic of China, and the Russian Federation. I owe special gratitude for the support during COVID pandemics, as well as for a paramount investment in Serbia to the President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, hoping that his talks with President Trump will be productive and that they will contribute to the stabilization of the developments in the world. At the same time, we nurture ties with traditional friends and partners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with whom we recently marked in Belgrade the 65th anniversary of the first conference of non-aligned countries held in our capital in 1961. Our openness reflects our development strategy, our history, and our understanding of the world. Serbia believes that states can have a clear course and interests of their own without closing the door to those with whom they do not agree on everything. After all, a world in which we speak only to those who think, as we do, would have little need for diplomacy. Freedom and independence in making decisions are the highest value for Serbia.
