Addressing the participants, among them nine heads of parliament, 10 deputy speakers and vice-presidents, as well as leaders of many international organizations, Gojkovic stressed that there can be no lasting peace without women nor common security and stability without women taking equal part in resolving global threats and challenges.

Gojkovic said that women taking an active role is a necessity in view of the challenges of modern times - terrorism, migrant crisis, rising nationalism and extremism, xenophobia and economic instability.

The Serbian Assembly Speaker said that UNSC Resolution 1325 “Women, Peace, Stability” recognizes this and stresses the importance of equal inclusion of women in security and peacekeeping efforts, adding that Serbia too recognized the importance of the issue and after the successful implementation of the first five-year National Action Plan for the Resolution, adopted the second National Action Plan to be conducted until 2020.

“This made Serbia one of the countries that recognize the key importance of women’s equal participation in the decision-making process and presence in governance positions”.

Gojkovic said that the response to threats to peace and security has to be a common one, especially in view of the fragility of the modern world due to a number of political, economic and social instabilities and rising security challenges.

“Outbreaks of violence and the spread of Nazism, neo-Nazism, racism, xenophobia and intolerance are worrying”, said Gojkovic, mentioning the destruction of memorials for WWII victims and the much more dangerous attempts to glorify Nazism, relativize war crimes and re-write history which is unacceptable.
“When it comes to our values, we must not stand by and watch the attempts to relativize Nazism. That is important because of the immense price our people paid to defeat Nazism, to show respect for the victims and to make sure these crimes are never repeated”, said Gojkovic.