SG:  Thank you again, Secretary Kerry.  It is a great pleasure to see you again in Paris.  Thank you for your leadership.  I have been highly commending the leadership of Secretary Kerry in addressing the Syrian issues, in particular the Vienna 1 and Vienna 2 processes, in which we have been able to begin the preparations for eventual political process.  And I warmly welcome your initiative again to hold the third meeting in New York on 18th of December. 

I myself and my Special Envoy, Staffan de Mistura, will of course participate and discuss with other leaders.  This [is] absolutely necessary, that as was agreed in Vienna 2, there should be a nationwide ceasefire as soon as possible. I expect that all the parties will make their own contribution. The Syrian government is going to have other groups of Syrians to gather in Syria. I hope they will have a good meeting and show their unity of purpose.  And in New York, I hope we’ll have a firm and solid basis so that the ceasefire will be launched, as well as the political process begun. 

Now for this climate summit meeting, I again thank and commend the leadership of President [Barack] Obama, who was here on November 30th, and expressed his strong commitment and leadership, and willingness to cooperate and coordinate with all Member States, and parties to the Convention. 

The political momentum has been growing day by day.  We have three and a half days to go now. I sincerely hope that the parties will accelerate the speed of their negotiations, so that by Friday evening, we’ll have a universal and robust climate change agreement.

We do not have any time to lose. This is what so many people around the world are expecting the world leaders to do.  I am committed to work with the United States and we had very good discussions on this and I am grateful for the United States leadership on this matter.