Director-General of UNESCO meets the President of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetozar Marovic 23-11-2004 - While on an official visit to UNESCO’s Headquarters, on 19 November 2004, the President of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetozar Marović, addressed the Organization’s Permanent Delegates, in presence of the President of the General Conference of UNESCO, Michaël Omolewa. He also held talks with the Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura.

It was the first visit of a Head of State of Serbia and Montenegro to UNESCO since the country joined the Organization in 2000.

President Marović’s visit offered an occasion to discuss with Mr Matsuura some aspects of international and regional cooperation in general and review the various areas of cooperation between Serbia and Montenegro and UNESCO in particular. Both Parties expressed their satisfaction about the bilateral cooperation in all the fields of UNESCO’s competence, including normative action.

More particularly, the talks focussed on the Tara River Biosphere Reserve, transboundary cooperation on Skadar Lake and the preservation of cultural heritage in Kosovo. The Director-General informed the President of the state of preparation of an international donor’s conference to be organized in the beginning of 2005 to raise funds for the reconstruction, rehabilitation and sustainable protection of the rich, multi-ethnic heritage in Kosovo.

In his address to the Permanent Delegates of UNESCO, President Marović highlighted the importance of strengthening regional cooperation in UNESCO’s fields of competence, as indicated by the Ministerial Conference entitled “Strengthening Cooperation in South-East Europe” organized at UNESCO Headquarters in April 2002.

Referring to the two upcoming meetings, a Regional Forum on Inter-religious and Inter-ethnic Dialogue to be held in Tirana, Albania, in December 2004, and the Forum on Cultural Corridors in South-East Europe to be held in Varna, Bulgaria, in May 2005, the Director-General expressed his satisfaction with “the foundations that have been laid, which allows us to envisage future collaboration with confidence.”

In the evening, Mr Matsuura received the Vuk Karadžić medal from President Marović. The decoration is named after the greatest Serbian educator and literary figure of the 19th century, Vuk Karadžić, founder of the modern Serbian grammar.

The Director-General of UNESCO had previously met the President in Ohrid, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, on the occasion of the August 2003 Regional Forum on Dialogue among Civilizations; in Belgrade, during the Director-General’s official visit to Serbia and Montenegro in May 2004 in regard to World Press Freedom Day, and at the ceremony of the inauguration of the Old Mostar Bridge in Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 2004.

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Source	Flash Info 183-2004