The president of the republic defended this Saturday that the Ibero-American space constitutes “a force of peace in the world” and has the task of “restoring multilateralism”, foreseeing that 2023 and 2024 will be “decisive years”.
“The world is multipolar, but lately it has stopped being multilateral. We have to restore multilateralism. And that is our job,” said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa at the 28th Ibero-American Summit in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
In a 15-minute speech in Portuguese, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa referred to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing war that has lasted more than a year as “a global war” to be condemned by all.
“A war born of the violation of international law and principles that we all perceive – even those who hold different positions – which is the principle of territorial integrity and the principle of state sovereignty, is a global war. None of us accept that those principles be violated against your state, whoever violates it, an A, B, C or D force,” he argued.
The head of state considered that this is a “historic summit”, taking place at “the beginning of a geopolitical turn in the world”, in which “there are powers that remain global, there are powers that become regional and there are new world powers”.
According to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, “the world is going to change, it is changing, it is unpredictable, but it will be a very different world from the one that was born at the end of the 20th century” and 2023 and 2024 “will be decisive years”.
At this point, he defended, “it is more important than ever to affirm the great principles” such as “international law, international organizations, the great principles, which enable, like multilateralism, to overcome unilateralism, to overcome protectionism, overcome isolation.” “.
“The Ibero-American world, including the Caribbean, plays a unique role in this changing world. There are many of us. There are many hundreds of millions of us,” he said.
“This is a time of great responsibility for all of us,” he added.
Source: DN
