Journalist:

Please share your expectations and ideas in view of bilateral cooperation on disaster control and emergency management between ICRC and China. We’d like to share your comments on BRIDRREM as well.

Director:

It's a great pleasure to be at this first coordinators’meeting. I think it's highly relevant for the International Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC) to participate in the event and we are very grateful to be invited by the Ministry of Emergency Management. Our organization is now 160 years old and we have been operating in so many crisis situations over that period. We need absolutely every possible form of cooperation. We think that our relationships and partnerships with the People's Republic of China is very important in that regard. We can cooperate extensively in exchange of experiences and exchange of knowledge. China has a lot of knowledge of managing disaster situations, emergencies and natural disasters in its own country and we just signed a new memorandum of cooperation with the Red Cross Society of China(RCSC) for the next 5 years.

That is a very significant moment. It's a landmark. And when people think about disasters, I just want to emphasize it's not something theoretical. It affects hundreds of millions of people around the world every year. And right now, we are seeing it with the earthquake that is hit Turkey and Syria. Just these last few days, the president of ICRC was in Aleppo of Syria. The coincidence was that was the moment the first airplane sent by RCSC landed in Damascus. And I want to commend RCSC for that very rapid response in health activities and in providing health assistance to Syria and also responding to the situation in Turkey. I think it's very important that this solidarity and commitment exist there. We are proud partners of RCSC. We think it's very important that these moments of solidarity are expressed and that humanity is displayed in times of crisis.