THE SYRIAN – GERMAN ASSOCIATION FOUNDATION DAY

21April2004

Dr. Bouthaina

Syrian- German Association in Germany,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good Evening,

       I'm very happy to be with you in this evening..

    Syria will not forget people who work for dialogue, and who work for respect and who work for dignity, and this is exactly what we need in our world today. We need to go back to bases and to communicate like this one that it shows that Germans and Syrians, Arabs and Europeans have so many things in common, have too many things to share and to change this horrible world and killing and destruction.

     Syria always called for dialogue, and we will continue to call for dialogue and peace. Despite all signals that come especially to make people hopeless at this time.

     I want to thank every one of you who are working in this association, because only through knowing each other, and exchanging information that it comes to appreciate each other and it comes to support each other, and it comes to live in peace with each other.

     I'm very happy that your association is celebrating its anniversary today, and I wish ten years ahead of this style. Now people know how important to found such these associations and to work with each other. And I would like to tell you that we are very proud of our Syrian Expatriates in Germany. We are very proud that wherever we go officials in Germany tell us we have good Syria committees, Syrian doctors with a great reputation, and we are very proud of them. We are very proud of them as German citizens and we very proud of them as descendent Syrian civilization and culture. And we feel no contradiction between the two each other because being loyal to Germany and being loyal to Syria is being loyal to the best human values.

    I remember in his speech the president was always stressing for Syrian expatriates, and as you know, we have fifteen millions Syrian expatriates all over the world, He was always stressing the importance of being loyal to the country in which they live before stressing the loyalty to their homeland Syria because He believes if you are not loyal to your country, to your street, to your neighbours you cannot be loyal to any country anywhere.

     I would like also to mention ambassador Sulayman Haddad who played very important role. I know how much he worked to have this magnificent  respect and to reconnect Syrian expatriates with their country.

    We will be meeting later on because we will talk about the Middle East, policy and problems, but I would like to speak to you that I'm very proud of you this evening and I want to tell you that in this critical moment we need all of you, we need all of your efforts in order to establish dialogue, love and peace in the face of people who only know the importance of nuclear arms.

      I would like to thank every and each one of you and to invite you to come and to discover Syria, and we shall be working together through our expatriates, through our Syrian-German associations in order to make this world a better place for all of us. Thank you very much■