UN's Ban, Russian official discuss road safety
MOSCOW. May 20 (Interfax) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has "made a high assessment of the recognized leadership of Russia in multilateral interaction at the United Nations in ensuring road safety," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
Ban was speaking during a meeting on Sunday with Russian Deputy Interior Minister Viktor Kiryanov.
Ban and Kiryanov, who met during a visit by the secretary general to Russia, discussed "aspects of interaction between Russia and the United Nations in implementing the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety," the ministry said in a statement posted on its website, www.mid.ru.
"Ban Ki-moon made a high assessment of the recognized leadership of Russia in multilateral interaction at the United Nations in ensuring road safety and expressed support for the further active role of Russia in promoting this set of issues at the UN General Assembly and on other UN floors, including in the context of evolving the global development agenda for the period after 2015," the statement said.
"Kiryanov briefed the UN secretary general on progress that has been achieved and measures in Russia to reduce the road injury rate with emphasis on the interests of vulnerable road traffic participants and shared Russian initiatives for the further development of international cooperation in this field," it said.
"Russia was the initiator of the latest two UN General Assembly resolutions on the road safety, whose co-authors were more than 100 member states of the Organization. In 2009, Moscow hosted the first international ministerial conference on road safety, whose results laid the basis for global cooperation in this field," the ministry said.
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