NEW YORK: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday opened an exhibition of photographs marking 50 years of Pakistan's participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations, saying Pakistani peacekeepers have kept alive the world body's values and the goals.
"The United Nations has 100,000 peacekeepers deployed around the world. One in ten is Pakistani. To put this another way, Pakistan is just one of the UN's 192 Member States but it is deploying a tenth of our peacekeeping personnel," he said at the Pakistan Mission to the United Nations in New York where the exhibition was held.
The Secretary-General's remarks on the occasion were released by the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), The event was not open to news media. Noting that the first Pakistani peacekeeper served in the Congo fifty years ago, the secretary-general said Pakistan's contribution has been consistent ever since, having served in 38 missions worldwide.
"They are involved now in nine of our most dangerous operations, with large contingents in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Ivory Coast and Liberia," he told the gathering. Recounting the services rendered by Pakistani peacekeepers in conflict zones around the world, he said, "Civilians who are able to live in peace thanks to the stabilizing presence of these brave Pakistanis... "I have watched them in action. I am profoundly grateful for their service, I see that same blend of strength and compassion in the images here today and in the eyes of your forces dedicated not only to keeping the peace, but to keeping alive the values and the goals of the United Nations all over the world."
Ban mourned the death of 122 Pakistani military, police and civilian personnel while serving the United Nations. "They are sons and daughters of Pakistan but they are also members of the United Nations family. We mourn their deaths. We remember their lives. And we vow to carry forward their valiant work for peace." The secretary-general agreed with Pakistan's UN Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon, who hosted the event, that peacekeeping is a credit to the UN, saying, "Thanks to the fine work of our troop-contributing countries Pakistan a leader among them."
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