from ban ki-moon to the 8th world summit of nobel peace laureates

I am honoured to send you my greetings for the first time as Secretary-General of the United Nations. As Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, you possess a combined wisdom and accumulated experience unrivalled by any grouping in the world.

Allow me to offer my warmest congratulations to Mr. George Clooney and Mr. Don Cheadle on receiving the 2007 Peace Summit Award. I thank them for their committed efforts to alleviate the suffering in Darfur. They are shining examples of what individuals can achieve in raising awareness of the urgent issues of our time.

You meet at a decisive moment in our endeavours to act on the Darfur crisis. We are now at a critical point regarding the deployment of a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force. Politically, we have made some headway in the negotiations to bring peace and stability to the region, but the road ahead will be tough. It is crucial that we keep the momentum going.

Our pressing concern is the early deployment of an effective, robust peacekeeping force. Only in this way can we achieve security, or credible progress in the peace talks. But this requires capability on the ground -- capability which we need UN Member States to provide, but which is still dangerously lacking. The most striking example is helicopters. In the past weeks and months, I have contacted, personally, every possible contributor of helicopters -- in the Americas, in Europe, in Asia. And yet, not one helicopter has been made available.