Annan: ""unprecedented"" natural disaster takes unprecedented global cooperation
6/1/2005 14:46
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in Jakarta Thursday that the Dec. 26
unprecedented natural disaster takes unprecedented global cooperation to cope
with, calling the international community to wake from the "nightmare."
Annan
is here to attend the Special ASEAN Leaders' Meeting on Aftermath of Earthquake
and Tsunami which opened Thursday morning in Jakarta, capital of this worst-hit
country in the calamity.
The one-day emergency summit is being held under the
auspices of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), along with UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Annan joined other grim-faced heads of state or
government, ministers and senior officials of international organizations in
observing one-minute silence for tsunami victims before Indonesian President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono addressed the opening session as chairman of the
special meeting.
At the opening of the summit, Annan said the tsunami death
toll will be likely over 150,000 and the exact tsunami death toll will never be
known.
Country delegations led by the heads of state or government are
Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea,
Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore and
Vietnam.
Countries represented by ministers are India, Sri Lanka, Thailand,
the United States, and Canada.
The international organizations participating
in the summit are the Asian Development Bank, the European Union, the United
Nations World Health Organization, the World Bank and the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Officials from four European countries - the United
Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands - as well as ministers from East
Timor are attending the summit as observers.
Annan is due to make a
fact-finding trip to Banda Aceh after the meeting which concludes in the
afternoon.
Xinhua
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