UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and US President George Bush, speaking on the opening day, paid attention one more time to the monstrosity of the Beslan tragedy.
Kofi Annan was the first to speak. He voiced the necessity to observe legality and human rights. As a negative example, when, in his words, we witness the fundamental laws that prescribe respect for the life of innocent people, especially children, violated shamelessly, he cited the hostage taking and massacre in Beslan.
US President George Bush, in his turn, said that in Beslan we saw terrorists measuring their success by the number of innocent victims and the anguish of bereaved families. Russian children have done nothing wrong to deserve such terrible suffering, horror and death. The president specially stressed that terrorists' actions contradict the norms of justice in any society and the principle of all religions. He also called on all civilized countries to fight together against the murderers and eliminate terrorist networks wherever they are.
The issue of fighting against international terrorism can without exaggeration be called a key one on the agenda of the current General Assembly of the UN. Efforts of Russian diplomats, first of all, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who is present at the assembly are aimed at mobilization of the world community's capabilities toward the fight against this common evil.
The talk is simultaneously about several directions of activity. They include organizing an effective partnership of special services in this sphere, realizing the Russian initiative to establish under the UN aegis a global system of countering the modern challenges and threats, whose very important component is a global antiterrorist coalition.
