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Annan stresses importance of striking global consensus on major threats

Annan stresses importance of striking global consensus on major threats

With emerging global problems altering long-held shared understandings about collective security, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today said it is more important than ever to forge a new global consensus to identify and tackle the greatest threats.

In conversation with Richard N. Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, for the David A. Morse Lecture in New York, Mr. Annan said the events of the past two years have exposed differences among countries about the use of force, with some advocating pre-emptive action and others calling for a different approach.

Mr. Annan said the world needs to move away from the idea that some threats, such as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, are of interest to only Northern countries, while threats such as poverty and hunger only concern the South.

"I think we need a clear global understanding of the threats and challenges that we all have to face, because to neglect any one of them might fatally undermine our efforts to confront the others," he said, according to the text of his opening remarks in the conversation with Mr. Haass.

The Secretary-General appointed a High-Level Panel of eminent people last November to examine the major threats facing the world today and to recommend how policies and institutions - especially the UN - should adapt and reform to meet them. The Panel is due to report back by the end of this year.

Mr. Annan urged the audience at the lecture, and the Council of Foreign Relations, to feed ideas and suggestions to the Panel and to generate debate domestically in UN Member States about the issues.