UNITED NATIONS, April 24 (Xinhua) -- President of the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly Miroslav Lajcak has called for the need to respect the rules of international peace efforts.
He made the remark when speaking of the ongoing two-day UN high-level meeting on building and sustaining peace.
The Cold War was difficult, "but at least it had rules. What is worse now is that we don't seem to have rules or there is definitely not enough respect for the rules," said the senior Slovak diplomat.
"My expectation is to strengthen multilateralism, to strengthen the rules-based system, to strengthen the world that is based on the same rules for everyone, for big and for small, because that is the only way we can prevent conflicts," he said while calling for a global diplomacy committed to preventing conflicts.
"There are too many conflicts around and we as the international community usually react to the conflict after they break out, not before. That is why we want to use this high-level meeting to speak about the prevention of conflicts," he told Xinhua on Monday ahead of the UN meeting.
It is a very important topic to prevent conflicts for the sake of saving human lives and reducing economic losses, he said.
"Diplomats should be focused on preventing conflicts," he added.
"I really hope that the high-level event will send a strong signal and will change the way we look at peace," he said while stressing the UN's central role in multilateral diplomacy.
"This is the place where we should discuss our problems, our issues, our different views before we find ourselves in conflict," he said.
The UN official praised the African country Gambia as a good example for defusing potential conflict through diplomacy amid difficulties, as well as China for its contribution to the UN budget, peacekeeping missions and commitment to multilateralism.
"China is playing a crucial role in the work of the United Nations with regard to saving peace and preventing conflicts," said the UNGA chief.
