Amir attends Paris Peace Forum

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani yesterday attended the opening of Paris Peace Forum, held at the Grand Halle de la Villette in Paris, at the invitation of President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron, in the presence of a number of Their Excellencies, Heads of State and Government, heads of delegations and a number of representatives of international organisations and civil society.

H H the Amir left yesterday evening the French capital Paris, after taking part in the opening of Peace Forum. H H the Amir was accompanied by an official delegation.

Reuters reported that the leaders of Germany and France called for a unified approach to fostering world peace at the forum.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the Paris Peace Forum, which followed a ceremony in the French capital to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War, with a warning that “blinkered” nationalism was gaining ground in Europe and beyond.

Echoing comments made by Macron, she said there was a worrying readiness by some to promote self-interest and ignore ties that have underpinned peace since the end of the Second World War.

“Most of the challenges today cannot be solved by one nation alone, but together. That’s why we need a common approach,” Merkel told the audience. “If isolation wasn’t the solution 100 years ago, how can it be today in such an interconnected world?”

Leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan were among those who listened as Merkel, Macron and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres lauded the UN and institutions like it that seek multilateral solutions to global problems.

AFP reported that Macron asked how the image of more than 70 world leaders including U S President Donald Trump and Putin paying their respects to the war dead in Paris yesterday would be remembered.

“Will it be a photograph of the last moment of unity before the world fell into a new disorder?” he asked. “The world we live in is being undermined by crises which are destabilising our societies,” the French President said, listing climate change, terrorism, cyber-crime and nuclear proliferation.

According to AFP, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned of “parallels” between the present day and the unstable and dangerous 1930s as he marked the centenary of World War I in a speech in Paris. “As I see it, several elements today have many parallels with both the start of the twentieth century and the 1930s, giving us grounds to fear that an unpredictable chain of events could ensue,” Guterres said at the Paris Peace Forum.

He warned about the “polarisation of political life” and rising tensions over trade.

حضر صاحب السمو الشيخ تميم بن حمد آل ثاني أمير البلاد المفدى افتتاح أعمال منتدى باريس للسلام المقام في مركز «غراند هال دو لا فييات» بمدينة باريس، مساء أمس، وذلك تلبية لدعوة من فخامة الرئيس إيمانويل ماكرون رئيس الجمهورية الفرنسية الصديقة، وبحضور عدد من أصحاب الفخامة والسعادة رؤساء الدول والحكومات ورؤساء الوفود المشاركة، وعدد من ممثلي المنظمات الدولية والمجتمع المدني.

وغادر حضرة صاحب السمو الشيخ تميم بن حمد آل ثاني أمير البلاد المفدى، مساء أمس العاصمة الفرنسية باريس، بعد أن شارك في افتتاح منتدى باريس للسلام. رافق سمو الأمير وفد رسمي.;