7th Ministerial conference of CoD starts Featured

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The 7th Ministerial conference of the Community of Democracies /CoD/ started officially in Ulaanbaatar on April 27. Mongolia, who has been chairing the CoD since July of 2011, is hosting this grand gathering with aims to transfer the chairmanship to the next country, to report on all work it has done within two years, and to run Parliament, Women, Youth, Civil Society and Business democracies forums. The Ministerial conference of the CD will run April 29. The united meeting with some 600 people and chaired by R.Amarjargal MP was addressed by the Prime Minister of Mongolia N.Altankhuyag. He thanked the gathered for coming to the events, then said this day 23 years ago the democratic revolution was in full swing here, and it ended fruitfully and that is why we have been chairing the CoD consisting of some 150 countries. The path to democracy was easy but Mongolia has managed to create a system that prioritize human rights and forms the state through the free democratic choice, he underlined. After this, Ms Maria Leissner, the Secretary General of the Community of Democracies/CoD/ took the floor. She said the Community of Democracies--the main network of deep ties between the democratic countries--was initiated by the Polish Foreign Minister Bronisaw Geremek and the U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000. Today, the Community is strengthening, Mongolia has set up a good image of democracy, even sandwiched between the two bid neighbors, it has determined its state policies and has put forwards the Millennium Development Goals and is going for them, she said. This conference is the gathering of all those who are striving to develop the democracy, she said hoping that all will talk to each other and discuss problems. She was followed by Dr. Tomicah Tillemann, the Senior Advisor to the Secretary for Civil Society and Emerging Democracies of the U.S. Department of State. He said he is glad to be in Mongolia who has been leading the region and whose prestige is increasing in the world. Then he said the gathered are to discuss issues concerning every corner of the world and appealed to them to make decisions that will be fruitful. After this, all forums started the same time--of civil society, women, youth, parliamentarians and the corporate sector. A session of the Governing council of the CoD is taking place at the Ministry of foreign affairs.