Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Peter Thomson, has returned to New York from a week’s visit to Kuwait and Iraq.  He travelled to Kuwait as a guest of the Kuwait Government in a delegation of UN Ambassadors from developing countries.  In addition to meetings with the Kuwait Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the UN Ambassadors met with the boards of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, the Kuwait Diplomatic Institute, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Allow me to thank you for convening this open debate on multidimensional peacekeeping. Given the emphasis on the evolving nature of peacekeeping missions in discussions in various UN bodies in recent years, the current discussion is most pertinent.