President of the Slovak Republic Ivan Gašparovič met with the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the UN headquarters in New York.

During the discussion, our Head of State appreciated the “Action Agenda” vision presented to the member states for the Secretary General’s second term. Ivan Gašparovič emphasised that “Slovakia is ready to continue being an active member of the international community, headed by the UN under your leadership.”

The Slovak President pointed out that our specialists can contribute to the fulfilment of this international organisation’s objectives. Peter Tomka is the President of the International Court of Justice in Hague, Miloš Koterec the President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Ján Kubiš the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan and Miroslav Jenča Head of the UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia. During the meeting with the UN Secretary General, our Head of State expressed Slovakia’s determination to continue helping the United Nations in seeking permanent peace in Cyprus. “The Slovak armed services will continue to perform the UNFICYP mission mandate as required by the organisation, and the Slovak Embassy in Nicosia will provide excellent services under the bi-communal dialogue of Cyprus political parties,” Ivan Gašparovič said.

 The discussion also turned to the topic of Syria, where the UN’s intensive efforts were not enough to stop the internal conflict. Ivan Gašparovič stressed that “from the very beginning, Slovakia has been an advocate of global, regional and local capacity building in the area of security sector reform.”