Foreign Ministers

"We may be changing and getting closer to your way of life, but give us a chance to decide what we want to carry with us into the future".'"

"“I’m a lawyer and I’ve been a judge, but there’s one thing that I have not done so far and that is to make laws, I would love a plan to join politics and to run for a political office as a member of parliament and therefore join the legislature.”"

"It wasn’t that simple. But in the end, I won. It not only changed the law on citizenship, so that men and women were equal in citizenship, it actually influenced other laws."

"It is a people saying in essence: "Our way of life may be different, but it is worthy of respect."

"I think I’m a nomad at heart, I’m just always moving. I need to be challenged, intellectually challenged. My legacy is to challenge myself"

"With Africa, European leaders are willing to talk about Darfur and Zimbabwe, but not, it seems, about Rwanda. European leaders need to be asked what they are going to do about this report as Africa's problems are not just Mugabe and Zimbabwe"

"We are cooperating on energy extraction and production, we think we can cooperate on agriculture, we can cooperate on financial services"

"Place female wisdom at the centre of any decision-making process, “no decision is made without women being consulted.”"

"It means that our issues, whether diplomatic, political or economic are going to be permanently represented and can be discussed at any time we want ... it is not symbolic, we think it is fundamental"

"The joint military operation was very crucial because once we realised that we have a common enemy, I think that was the departure point ... (for) cooperating in other sectors"

"We believe in today's world the more successful and the more prosperous China is naturally a more prosperous world"

"It has turned out to be the most expensive and longest-running trial this country has ever dealt with. It has also attracted a lot of interest as well as a fair amount of bandwagon jumpers, both nationally and internationally, than perhaps any other case has ever done.'The Bushmen belong to an ethnic group 'that has been historically looked down upon,', said the judge - the names for them 'common terms of insult in the same way as nigger' and kaffir'."

"Healing is a process, even if you were outside and lost your friends or relatives. You cannot however be in the same position of the people who where here (Rwanda) surviving the genocide. What is helping us to heal are the efforts to talk, justice is being instituted while impunity is being fought."

"“If we enhance peace on the entire continent, pool our markets into bigger and more viable entities, integrate our infrastructure and borrow each other’s human capacities, then prosperity can be realized.”"

"People cannot be allowed to just say oh, this is just another African country. Genocide is not just a crime against Rwanda, it is a crime against humanity and as such it should not just be about Rwanda fighting this battle alone"

"Oh yes we went through such troubles but today we have built walls, that never again shall this happen"

"It got me thinking about the issue on a broader scale, How do you retain a cultural identity, which everyone says is a good thing, without being isolated."

"Reforming the African Union, will open great opportunities in areas of trade, employment and economic growth in Africa."

"On a personal level, that was hard. It wasn't just my case, my issue, but the focus was on me personally. At the time I was young and thought everything was possible but there was a real cost both financially and emotionally. I always say at the start I was driving a BMW and by the end of the case I was in a pick-up truck. I had to take my kids out of private school and put them in public school."

"I was born into a Botswana where there was no tarmac road, no telephone, where you had to hold water on your head and firewood as well. I think I saw my first refrigerator when I was a teenager."

"'ultimately about a people demanding dignity and respect."

"The language of law is very masculine. The culture of law is so masculine. At one point, I started to think that it shouldn't be like this and that I have a right to be where I am."

"Botswana is emerging from a 'national shutdown'."

"Small countries like Croatia cannot play a decisive role in combating global threats but can make a significant contribution to world peace and security through stabilizing their own neighborhood and playing a constructive role in multinational structures."

"I called upon everyone in the spirit of what I've said to refrain from using the term "the Western Balkans." I do know that it won't disappear from the jargon so easily, that it is a technical term that is used by very many institutions and in documents, but I believe that we should clearly start to call this part of Europe, experience it as it -- what it really is, and this is Southeast Europe."

"Croatian coastal areas, one of the world’s cleanest and most wondrous, are at times severely affected by poorly managed waste from our southern, neighbouring countries."

"I remember how much I yearned for democracy, when I was a girl growing up in the communist Yugoslavia. How much I wanted to escape the oppression, lack of freedom and lack of individual choice. This is what motivated me to become an exchange student in the US. Upon return, it was even more difficult to tolerate the failed economic policies, the lack of values, of respect, of democratic institutions and inequality before the state and the law. Thus, I joined the moment for an independent Croatia that wanted to become part of the democratic family of nations."

"Sports brings people together. People in all of our countries are tired of ideological differences, of going back into the past all the time."

"What I want to do is work together with all my female and male colleagues and work with the media in terms of our substance and not our form. Let us not divide ourselves into men and women."

"We live in times of great opportunities and serious challenges. We are more interconnected than ever, yet the world remains divided in many ways. Technological developments have enabled our world to become a truly global village. Our citizens have become global citizens and are well-informed and strongly driven by developments around the world. They expect global leadership in these times of rapid change and great complexity and look to all of us for inspiration."

"The goals before us — poverty eradication, quality education, inclusion and climate action — cannot be achieved without individual national efforts coupled with our common dedication and action. For its part, Croatia is doing its best to fulfil the goals we have set for ourselves."

"We are here to remember the huge contribution of the men and women from the ranks of the Red Army who fought against Nazi Germany. We remember their courage and resolve, we remember the millions who risked and the many who lost their lives alongside their American, British and French allies as well as all the others, in order to free us all from the National Socialist tyranny. I profess my deep respect for their fight against – as Yehuda Bauer writes – "the worst regime that has ever disgraced this planet". I bow in sorrow before the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian victims – before all victims of the former Soviet Union."

"At the war's end, the death toll of the peoples of the Soviet Union numbered some 27 million. Twenty-seven million people were killed, murdered, bludgeoned, starved or left to die as a result of forced labour by National Socialist Germany. Fourteen million of them were civilians. No one had to mourn more victims in this war than the peoples of the then Soviet Union. And yet these millions are not as deeply etched in our collective memory as their suffering and our responsibility demand. This war was a crime – a monstrous, criminal war of aggression and annihilation."

"Officials at the Reich Security Main Office planned the annihilation with cynical precision. They planned a war that declared the entire Soviet population – the entire Soviet population – to be the enemies, from newborn babies to the very old. The enemies were to be defeated not just militarily, but were also to be made to pay for the war imposed upon them themselves, with their lives, their property, with everything that was part of their existence. The entire European part of the Soviet Union, whole stretches of today's Ukraine and Belarus – and I quote from the orders – were to be "cleansed" and prepared for German colonisation. Metropolises such as Leningrad, present-day Saint Petersburg, Moscow or Kyiv, were to be razed to the ground."

"Those who waged this war killed people in every imaginable way, with an unprecedented degree of brutality and cruelty. Those who were responsible for it, who in their national fanaticism even invoked German culture and civilisation, Goethe and Schiller, Bach and Beethoven, betrayed all civilised values, violated all principles of humanity and law. The German war against the Soviet Union was murderous barbarity. As difficult as we may find it, we must remember that. And when if not on anniversaries such as this. Remembering this inferno, this absolute enmity and the act of dehumanising the other – remembering this continues to be an obligation for us Germans and a memorial for the world."

"The Palestinian foreign minister has called on the international criminal court to immediately open an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, and apartheid. Riyad al-Maliki met the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, at the tribunal on Tuesday in The Hague and referred the case, calling it an “important and historic step towards justice for the Palestinian people who continue to suffer ongoing, widespread and systematic crimes”. He said the move was “due to the intensity and the rate and the severity of the crimes against our people” including the targeting of “unarmed protestors in the Gaza Strip”."

"International community content with speeches without any real action."

"Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki also shed few tears over Trump’s departure, calling the former president “nothing but bad news for the Palestinians.” “Zionist sympathist advisors — who worked in the interest of Israel and used their positions to do what others were unable to do — leave with [Trump]. At least we will not wake up every morning expecting the worst,” al-Maliki said in a statement to Palestinian news agency Ma’an."

"At Tuesday’s Security Council meeting, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki called for the revival of the Quartet and reiterated Abbas’s call for an international peace conference “that can signal a turning point in this conflict.” He also expressed hope that “the US will play an important role in multilateral efforts for peace in the Middle East.” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow is convinced that the Quartet, working closely with both sides and Arab states, “can play a very, very effective role.”"

"To those who say that Israel has the right to defend itself, what right are you talking about exactly? Israel is the colonizing power. It is occupying our land. It is persecuting a whole people. Israel would ask you, “What would you have done if missiles were targeting your cities?” But Israel forgets that its occupation is the root cause of the violence. So I would like to ask you: What would you do if your territory is occupied, if your people were displaced, if your people were killed, detained, arrested, persecuted? How can an occupying power have the right to defend itself, when the whole people under occupation is deprived of the very same rights? How can some rush to issue statements to condemn the killing of one Israeli at a time when the whole world stays silent and turns a blind eye to the genocide of whole Palestinian families?"

"Seychelles remains open to visitors (despite COVID-19 pandemic). We welcome everybody. We have absolutely no intention to change that."

"It is not possible to give up our rights and interests in the Eastern Mediterranean just because sanctions will come or because the EU will criticize us,"

"Lord yes, in a certain sense it was a preventive war, [motivated by] the constant threat of attack, the greater likelihood of its inevitability in the future, and by the military's claim: today war is still possible without defeat, but not in two years! Yes, the generals. It could only have been avoided by a rapprochement with England, that is still my conviction. But after we had decided for a [common] policy with Austria, we could not desert her in such danger."

"What I am able to say concerning the direction and aim of our terms, I have already said repeatedly. To put an end to the war with a durable peace that will compensate us for all the wrongs we have suffered and will safeguard the existence and future of a strong Germany—that is our aim."

"We were severely handicapped by the war of [18]70-71 and by our geographical position. Since the coronation of Emperor [William II] we often did the opposite of that which would have lightened our burden. ... [But] surely imperialism would have triumphed even without our help, and it remains highly questionable if, even with the most reasonable policy, we could have prevented the natural French, Russian, and English opposition from uniting against us. We have become guilty but only universal and collective guilt has brought about the world catastrophe."

"The Italian Government has now written her perfidy indelibly with letters of blood on the pages of history."

"We will create real guarantees to ensure that Belgium shall not become a Franco-British vassal and shall not be used as a military and economic high road against Germany. Germany cannot abandon the so long enslaved Flemish people to Latinisation. We will, on the contrary, ensure for it a sound development corresponding to its resources and based on the Flemish language and character."

"My last speech before the assembled Reichstag on December 12, 1916, concerned the proposal of Germany and her Allies to enter into peace negotiations Our action found a lively echo in the neutral countries. But in the enemy countries the stubborn war lust of their rulers was stronger than the cry of the nations for peace. Our enemies alone bear the enormous guilt for the continued bloodshed. It was they who rejected the hand of understanding."

"I would not have declared war on Russia and France on our part, for we thereby placed ex nexu foederis first Rumania, then Italy. That was very stupid on the part of Bethmann and Jagow. Even our friends in Italy, who excuse us by saying that in the summer of 1914 we sinned not from malice, but from simplicity, cannot explain this lourde bêtise. It is indeed difficult to explain, and always will be. Ballin has assured me that the reason Bethmann insisted that we should declare war on Russia was that he thought that the Social Democrats could only be brought into it that way, expecting that “Tsarism” (detested by the whole of our Left-Wing) would affect them as a red rag affects a certain quadruped."

"It is a crime that Russia has forced war upon us while we are still mediating between Vienna and Petersburg, and a Franco-Russia war against Germany is enough of a disaster. ... This war turns into an unlimited world catastrophe only through England's participation. It was in London's hands to curb French revanchism and pan-Slav chauvinism. Whitehall has not done so, but rather repeatedly egged them on. Now England actively helps them. Germany, the Emperor, and the government are peace-loving. That the ambassador knows as well as I do. We enter the war with a clear conscience, but England's responsibility is monumental."