Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Oct 13: During the ninth P20 Summit held in the country’s capital on Friday, Duarte Pacheco, the President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, emphasized that discussing Sustainable Development Goals and the future is inconceivable without peace.
“Without peace, forget to discuss Sustainable Development Goals or to discuss other issues. So peace should be on the front page of our worries, always,” he said, at the opening of the P20 Summit.
Over the next two days, the P20 summit will feature four high-level sessions on ‘Accelerating SDGs’, ‘Sustainable Energy Transition,’ ‘Women-Led Development,’ and ‘Transformation in People’s Lives through Public Digital Platforms.’
In-depth talks on “how Parliaments can effectively advance the objectives of the P20” will be held during these sessions between G20 members and guest nations.
His concerns become pertinent in light of the recent outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas over the past weekend, as well as the ongoing 19-20 month-long conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
“And so here, from here we should give a strong scream (for peace),” Pacheco stated.
“As representatives of our countries, we need to defend peace everywhere, in all continents. In Europe, in Africa, in the Middle East, in Asia, in America,” he said.
“Even a single death is too much, it’s too much. And we need to defend peace all over the world. And we parliamentarians know how to do it because we do it inside our parliaments,” he said further, adding, “We discuss very hard with people who have different ideas, but we try to reach consensus. And what should do is to transform it to the international level, with parliamentarians, from different countries, with different perspectives,” he added.