Peace and stability are impossible without development, as they cannot exist in societies whose nature provides for violence and disrespect for funda… - Leonid Kuchma

With the era of great ideological confrontation behind us, mankind has managed to decrease the threat of self-destruction by nuclear conflagration and to establish sufficiently reliable mechanisms of international security.

The United Nations was established by people who realized that nations, peoples and States are interdependent and complementary components of a single entity called humanity. The presence of an unprecedented number of world leaders here today is convincing evidence of their support for the United Nations at this crucial stage of its development. The most important task for the United Nations today is to define itself under these new conditions and to follow the road indicated by the real circumstances of our existence. To do this would constitute a source of strength, longevity and moral health for the United Nations.

Ukraine has become a democratic State with a policy aimed at ensuring the needs and rights of its citizens, and at establishing a civil society. There is every reason to conclude that during our six years of independence we have laid the foundation of further State-building.