Members of the press; Ladies and Gentlemen.
His Excellency Dr. Jose’ Ramos-Horta, President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is visiting the Maldives at my invitation. I thank him for undertaking this visit and I also extend a warm welcome to the President and his distinguished entourage.
We have been able to make good use of the visit so far to build close ties between both our countries.
We have just signed an agreement on cultural exchanges, and another agreement on travel. We hope that these agreements will facilitate closer interaction between the peoples of our two countries. We have also signed the visa agreement with the intention that both peoples can travel more between both our countries.
His Excellency President Ramos-Horta and I also just had a very frank and an in-depth discussion on a range of issues including development, poverty eradication and climate change. We have a lot of common interests and we believe that we can develop these interests to the mutual benefit of both our countries.
Mr. President is no ordinary head of state, we all know that. He is a renowned champion of freedom and democracy and the illustrious winner of the Noble Peace Prize, for his efforts to bring freedom and democracy to his people. He is also a fearless and uncompromising champion of human rights and freedom everywhere. Therefore, I am very happy to learn the Timor- Leste will extend its full support to the Maldives candidacy to win the election to the UN Human Rights Council this year.
I might also add that president Ramos is perhaps the only voice from the developing world, who has consistently spoken against detention of Aung San Suu Kyi. I applaud him for that. We both hope that she will be released before the elections in Burma later this year. While I encourage the process of engagement underway, I would also like to note my support for the call made by the President last year, for an arms embargo on Burma until Aung San Suu Kyi is released.
The President and his compatriots have much to offer to us in the Maldives, there is much we can learn from their experience in building democracy and securing transitional justice.
My Foreign Minister, Dr. Shaheed has visited Timor-Leste at invitation from their government and brought invaluable insight from the manner in which that country is addressing issues of national reconciliation and democracy building.
The visit by the President of Timor has enabled us to identify further opportunities and advancements that are of mutual interest for both our countries.
Our two countries are small - we are both members of small island developing states, Alliance of Small Island States. As such we share number of concerns about similar development challenges and, of course, climate change. These are issues on which we can pursue an active and joint role at various international forums.
Mr President has just sketched a program on how both countries may be able to interact with the international community, especially with respect to climate change. We will, during the cause of this visit, be able to further examine and bring these discussions to a more firm narrative. We hope that we will be able to come out with that narrative soon.
We believe that, with both our countries engaged in finding solutions to that very serious challenge that the world is facing, which is climate change, we will be able to come up with a very viable option. We have with us one of the best minds in Asia and I am sure that we will be able to make good use of that.
Both our countries in the recent past have worked against odds. No one believed that East-Timor would be an independent and democratic country even 10 years ago. International world leaders, world powers, never ever actually believed that that transformation is going to happen in that country.
Not many did also believe that this country will be able transit from authoritarian rule to a democracy so peacefully and so smoothly. We worked against the odds and therefore, we are both countries who are very used to working against the odds. We must be able to deliver because, only because, of this reason alone as well.
We share number of issues common - both countries were colonized by the Portuguese in the 1500. Actually the Portuguese came here first en route to Deli. Therefore, we must be able to find many common heritages, common cultural issues from that presence. We understand that Portuguese rule in Maldives was very short - just 18 years. But during the course of those 18 years and many years followed after that, we are left with many similarities and many cultural heritages that we can both share.
All in all, I just feel that we can come out to be very good friends, we already are. We can make good use of that friendship and we hope both our people will benefit from the cooperation we are going to kick start.
I would also like to congratulate his Excellency the President for being mindful, for being thoughtful, for being patient, even while having huge reserve of international foreign currency that Timor has been fortunate to accumulate during the cost of the last very few years, they have not gone, in the sense, mad spending, they have not blown the money. I believe, I am certain they would be cautious - money would be only spent when it benefits the people.
I am sure that the President would agree with me that we are here for no reason other than to serve our people. We do not matter - the President and me we do not matter at all. If we can do something that is good for our people, even an ounce, an atom of it, we would be happy and we would have done our part in our life.
I will not keep the president waiting and we will be, after the small statement from the President, we would open ourselves for questions from the press.
Thank you very much.
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