The mandate you go with is intimidating and also is a source of respect that you gain, because you have come with this mandate from the United Nations.

The third point is that for some time the UN has been talking about helping Afghanistan in the reconstruction of the country but there has never been any real commitment by the international community to provide resources for that.

There is a firm, clear commitment to provide resources and ideas to enable us to organize the Afghans towards starting the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction.

There is a story which is not being told strongly enough of the Afghan employees of the UN inside the country who are saving hundreds of thousands of lives everyday by their bravery and nobody talks of them.

There is an element of luck, there is an element of trial and error, sometimes you fail, sometimes you succeed. It's not as beautifully simple as it may seem when we are talking about it.

There is an expression now that is commonly used about these so-called internal conflicts which are not really internal, because they have connections to the outside world.

What again I tell my people is that no matter how much you know, it's never enough. You will always discover, after the fact, that you've missed something.

You are dealing with people who have taken the responsibility of killing their own because they think that they are right, they think that they are serving the interests of their people. They not going to give that up easily, just because you've shown up.

Be modest, be respectful of others, try to understand.

In the globalized world that is ours, maybe we are moving towards a global village, but that global village brings in a lot of different people, a lot of different ideas, lots of different backgrounds, lots of different aspirations.

In Rwanda that genocide happened because the international community and the Security Council refused to give, again, another 5000 troops which would have cost, I don't know, maybe fifty, a hundred, million dollars.

I think a failed state is the responsibility of the people who have made that state fail, and those are generally the people of that country.

A fly cannot go in unless it stops somewhere; therefore weapons, fuel, food, money will not go to Afghanistan unless the neighbors of Afghanistan are working, are cooperating, either being themselves the origin or the transit.

There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.

Afghanistan is a land-locked country.

At times one feels that what is being said in the West is that the fact that you are a Muslim predisposes you to this blind, stupid terrorism.

Of course the UN brings in a lot of moral authority.

People now realize that globalization is not only for the multi-nationals and the circulation of money.

Probably I understand very much the people who rise against injustice.

Several million people inside and outside Afghanistan are destitute and desperately in need of help.