Tunisian leader calls on international community to step up efforts to reduce adverse effects of soaring oil, food prices.
TUNIS - Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali called Thursday on the international community to help offset the adverse effects of soaring oil and commodity prices.
“The deep and rapid changes and the huge and complex challenges characterizing our world today, particularly the excessive and continuous rise of the prices of oil, food products and raw materials, compel us all to step up efforts in order to reduce the adverse effects of these changes, particularly on developing countries,” he said speaking to recently-accredited foreign ambassadors in Tunis.
Such efforts, he added, should help “confer a solidarity dimension on international relations, and offer all countries around the world the opportunity to achieve development and ensure the attributes of decent life for their peoples.”
President Ben Ali has already been the author of an initiative to establish a “World Solidarity Fund to eradicate poverty and promote social development in developing countries”. The 57th General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution in December 2002 approving the creation of the Fund. More recently, the Tunisian leader has called for the allocation of a dollar-per-barrel of oil to finance the Fund.
Regarding relations with Mediterranean countries, President Ben Ali reiterated Tunisia’s commitment to “boosting the level of cooperation between the two shores of the Mediterranean to that of solidarity-based partnership which helps promote security, stability and development in the Mediterranean basin.”
In January 2008, Tunisia was the first country south of the Mediterranean to join a free trade area agreement with the European Union.
Addressing domestic political reform, the Tunisian president said his country is committed to modernization and democratic pluralism.
“With firm determination, we are pursuing our action to consolidate the process of democracy and pluralism, expand public freedoms, broaden the scope of political participation, to promote the human rights protection system and the values of tolerance and openness, strengthen the foundations of the republican system and rule of law, and achieve sustainable and comprehensive development for our people,” Ben Ali added.
Source : Middle East Online,
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