On this official trip, I will continue to pursue the President’s foreign policy agenda – an agenda that builds respect for our country overseas and which makes us stronger domestically.

 During my official trip to the United Nations and Washington, I will be building on the foreign policy initiatives of the President, particularly the initiatives the President presented during the United Nations Leaders Summit last September.

 In the United Nations in New York, I will further strengthen our investment in helping build global peace.  I will be presiding over the launching of the Tripartite Forum on interfaith Cooperation for Peace.

 This Tripartite Forum is the result of our efforts in the United Nations to promote greater interfaith dialogue.  These efforts include the historic Interfaith Summit chaired by the President last September during the UN Leaders Summit and the United Nations Conference on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace which I chaired last June. The Conference succeeded in an unprecedented gathering of government officials, UN executives and civil society leaders to discuss the importance of interfaith dialogue and cooperation the search for peace and helped lay the basis for the Interfaith Summit.

 In the US, my primary objective is also to help ensure the peace dividends for the Southern Philippines.  I will be meeting with officials of the US Institute for Peace, the primary organization that would be responsible for managing the peace dividends that would come for the US.  I will also meet with key US legislators and seek their support in funding these peace dividends.

I will also continue to seek support for our global initiatives on interfaith dialogue, debt and oil as well as the issue of defense and security funding and cooperation, to help strengthen our national capacity against terrorists and enemies of peace who seek to harm our peace process and who desire to prevent the people of the Mindanao from realizing reaping the dividends of peace. END.