Kofi Annan Quotes

If governments do not want to work with the U.N. and the international organizations, there is a limit to what you can do. And there is also a limit to patience.

We begin by not taking it [the United Nations] seriously.

My priority is to give the United States the kind of influence it should have.

As long as the problem of world reconstruction remains the center of interest for all nations, blocs having similar attitudes will form and operate even within the League itself.

During the three decades of its existence, the effectiveness of the United Nations has, on the whole, tended to decrease, particularly in the field of peace and security and, more generally, all issues in which the developed countries feel they have important stakes.

I'm a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

There are nearly 200 countries and a population of over 6 billion in today's world. International affairs should be addressed by all countries through consultations rather than monopolised by a few powers.

I have concluded that the U.N. can do a few things well.

Our alliances should be understood as a means to expand our influence, not as a constraint on our power. The expansion of democracy and freedom in the world should be a shared interest and value with all nations.

Obama's foreign policy is strangely self-centered, focused on himself and the United States rather than on the conduct and needs of the nations the United States allies with, engages with, or must confront.

All in all, the League of Nations is not inevitably bound, as some maintain from time to time, to degenerate into an impotent appendage of first one, then another of the competing great powers.

Let us face it, the U.N. has failed. It has failed in its mission to promote world peace.

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations.

In the United Nations, when China entered, we voted on the same position, and since then we have maintained the same position, that position has not changed.

I would never play any role in anything that involves the United Nations for obvious reasons.

There is no such thing as the United Nations.

When the E.U. and the U.S. agree, other countries follow.

There's no such thing as the United Nations. If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

The utter incompetence of the U.N. is literally incomprehensible.

I don't think there is necessarily a contradiction between being a hegemonic power on the one hand and functioning multilaterally on the other.

As far as the international issues are concerned, the most important thing is the state of the transatlantic relationships, Euro-Atlantic relationships: how to develop them and how to strengthen them further.

Here we encounter two conflicting concepts with which we must come to grips in our time: the idea of national solidarity and the idea of international cooperation.

I very much hope that the United States will finally... realise that they can no longer act as the prosecutor, the judge, and the executioner in every part of the world and that they need to cooperate to resolve issues.

Costa Rica is not afraid to go before any international body.

The U.S. cannot go it alone simply when it is convenient.