In his first celebration of the International Day of Human Fraternity as Venezuela’s Alternate Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), Joaquín Pérez Ayestarán highlighted Venezuela’s commitment to a culture of peace, dialogue and cooperation to promote UN cornerstones such as Sustainable Development, International Peace and Security, and Human Rights.
“Venezuela reaffirms its absolute conviction about the promotion of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace as a state policy, having the most vulnerable at the core of public policies, and calls for promoting diplomacy, dialogue, tolerance, understanding, unity and cooperation as formulas to reach a peaceful solution of conflicts by respecting the sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples, as well as cultural diversity, aware that these values enrich us and guarantee a fairer, more peaceful world,” said Pérez Ayestarán.
In this regard, he recognized the important achievements of the Culture of Peace movement, which aims to promote diversity, inclusion and peaceful coexistence.
The Venezuelan representative stressed that the United Nations is the best example of the international community’s capacity to come together, even in the midst differences, and to move forward by negotiating, understanding and respecting each other to reach peace.
“No matter how unattainable it seems, there are real signs that a new fraternal, human world is possible,” said Pérez Ayestarán.
Likewise, the Venezuelan ambassador highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic uncovered the two faces of humanity. First, a face marked by solidarity, cooperation and inclusive multilateralism that seeks to counter the devastating effects of the virus; and second, a face marked by isolation and selfishness that defends individualist, economic interests and jeopardizes the world’s stability.
In this regard, Péres Ayestarán stressed that the model that should prevail is that of cooperation among the peoples and peaceful coexistence, recognizing that the world is as strong as its weakest link.
Finally, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela reaffirmed its call for declaring COVID-19 vaccines a universal, public good and distributing them in a fairly equitable manner., and expressed its concerns about the creation of mechanisms aiming to limit the export of vaccines and medical supplies to third countries, particularly to developing countries, to face the pandemic.