ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 9 - 10 JUNE 2004

The Secretary-General travelled to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the afternoon of Wednesday, 9 June, to receive an honorary degree from Harvard University and to deliver a commencement address.

On Wednesday evening, he attended a dinner honouring him and eight other prominent individuals who were receiving honorary degrees from the University.  The host of that dinner, Harvard President Larry Summers, said that the Secretary-General “in a very real sense bears the weight of the world on his shoulders”.

The Secretary-General responded with a toast, saying he was now tempted to say that he had the best of both worlds -- an MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) education and a Harvard degree.  He added that America’s universities today have a special responsibility, more crucial than before, to encourage American students to look outwards from their country and see and understand the extraordinary world beyond it, in all its complexity and richness.

On Thursday afternoon, he delivered the commencement address.

He said that it is in the interest of every country to have international rules and to abide by them.  All great American leaders have understood this, he added, which is one of the things that makes the United States a unique world power.

He noted that, in recent weeks, the United States once again found that it needed the unique legitimacy of the United Nations to bring into being a credible interim government in Iraq.

Now, the Secretary-General added, the international system faces three great tests in the first years of the new century:  the test of collective security; that of solidarity between rich and poor; and that of mutual respect between faiths and cultures.  He affirmed, “I know that we can pass those tests.”  (See Press Release SG/SM/9357.)

Just before delivering that commencement address, the Secretary-General met at Harvard with the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  They talked about ways to continue the discussion on Cyprus, as well as recent developments in Iraq.

The Secretary-General returned to New York on Thursday afternoon.