 I welcome and commend all the participants who are attending this very critical meeting that presents an opportunity to seize the history and turn the tide towards seeking lasting solution for the challenges we have in our region. I am encouraged by the progress made so far in facilitating dialogue, negotiations, and the peaceful resolution of conflict in our brotherly neighbor and brotherly country that the Democratic Republic was called. This effort and the promising start is significant due to the support and dedication of the chairperson of the East African community with Excellency Everest, the Ishinia President of the Republic of Burundi, towards the restoration of peace and stability in Eastern DRC. It is important that we also appreciate, with gratitude, the role played by His Excellency Gohuru Kenyatta as he continues to play the role as chief facilitator of the Nairobi process. Mr. President, I salute your credentials as you champion peace in our region, and in particular with regards to the inter-bombolese concertative framework. These shared values of the foundation of the East African community also encudder strong bonds of connecting the nations and people of our greater community. It is self-evident fact that our region is united by a common yearning for peace, hope for unity, quest for opportunity, and desire for shared prosperity. The people of Kenya are deeply invested in the destiny of our brothers and sisters who hold this leader. And as a government, it is our duty to actualize their aspirations by participating in frameworks that enhance our collective prospects of peace, security, social, and economic progress. Kenya comments you, Your Excellency President Felix Giusecchedi, for your sustained dedication and commitment to peace under the coming effort you have invested in endeavors to find a lasting solution to the security situation in the Eastern DRC. My government assures you, Your Excellency, and the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as the entire East African region and Africa at large, of Kenya unwavering support, and of our determination to stay this course together until the job is done. Mr. President, you are not alone, and I want you to let your brothers and sisters in the DRC to know that they are not alone. The inescapable diet of geography ties us together in the East Africa, like the Amit students. So long as the DRC knows no peace, the prospects for prosperity for the rest of the East Africa will remain in and above it. Instability and insecurity in the DRC will be relentless in undermining human development and holistic programs in and beyond the Great Lakes. It is not only limiting the potential of our region in terms of trade and investment, but also demigrating the dignity of our people, causing suffering, displacement, and death. In a world of eight billion people with unrelenting climate change threats, the people of Africa cannot afford to seek help from beyond, before exhausting our own proprietary innovative solutions. Africa's solutions are closer, at hand, given the scope of economic opportunities for one billion Africans and vast, under-exploded physical and human health. The state of the world beholds us to pull together and pull ahead. It holds no good standing. This is why we have taken a decisive position, a sense of state of EAC, to do everything possible to find a lasting peaceful solution to this conflict. And I dare say we will not relent. We shall seize every opportunity that comes our way to collaborate in enhancing our capacity for transformational collective action. To watch this end, we shall seek to enhance our bonds of profanity, purposeful friendship, and strategic cooperation for the mutual benefit of all our people. The security situation in Eastern DRC continues to be a source of great concern. As we welcome the deployment of the East African Community Legal Force, we must recognize that its operational environment remains charged with stress. This demands closer cooperation and greater capacity to collaborate with other regional and international partners to effectively counter the threats that barriers and groups and negative elements continue to force. We are here to emphasize the urgent need for dialogue, de-escalation, and to encourage and facilitate every actor to intensify their pursuit through the effective engagement of regional and international dispute resolution mechanisms. We are also encouraged, not to encourage regional states to maintain their commitment to existing regional bilateral as well as multilateral understandings. Later, the vital importance of utilizing approved frameworks and engaging positively to address all issues, disagreements, misunderstandings, and concerns in order to sustain and enhance mutual outcomes. For its part, Kenya retains its unflinching support for efforts that support diplomatic and necessary military solutions to the effective restoration of sustainable peace and stability in DRC. We emphasize that regional peace and security remains our collective enterprise. Specifically for Kenya, you may wish to know, and I'm telling this to my brothers from the DRC, you may wish to know that my predecessor, the president who was never here, and myself, were on different sides of the political context two months ago, and the competition was steep. But after the election, I met with the president, I looked at him in the eye, and I told him, Mr. President, you have started a very important process in EAC, I want you to continue that process. And he told me he was ready to do it. Despite all that had gone on, because of the interests of our nation, because of the interests of our region, because of the interests of our continent, and because peace is important to Kenya, to DRC, to our region, President Kenyatta has done a wonderful job as he facilitates this process, because collectively as a country, we value peace. Kenya is firmly persuaded that our well-being and destinies as peoples and nations of this region are intimately and intensely interconnected. Our security, stability, and progress, therefore, is dependent on that of our region and indeed on the rest of the African continent. Consequently, the possibility of peace and stability is not only desirable and beneficial, it is the inevitable condition for socio-economic transformation and shared prosperity. Kenya funds the East African Community Secretaryate and the African Union for the commendable efforts made so far towards implementing the decision and directives of the 22nd Ordinary Summit of the EAC Herzog State. I also take this opportunity to strongly reiterate the call for EAC member states, our partners, and other stakeholders to act swiftly in on-perspective commitments that we have been making. I want to thank President Sulu Hassan, the President of Tanzania, for committing to support this process financially. I also wish to thank President Kedami for also committing to support this process financially, and also President Iberica Putam-70 for also committing to support this process financially. There is no greater demonstration of commitment from the EAC than the one that I have seen from the Vegas Herzog State of our region. Yesterday, when we met with the chair of our EAC, we decided to call all the other colleagues in this region, and all of them are set aside their schedules to be able to attend this meeting, even if further. It demonstrates their political good that we have mobilized for the sake of peace in DRC, because peace in DRC is peace in our region. Peace in our region is peace in every part of our region and continent. For us, as leaders in this region, we take this assignment as an assignment of our lifetime, because our continent is ripe for the huge opportunities. This is the continent of our century, and we cannot afford to lose the opportunity of our lifetime at the order of countries that we can resolve. And it is our commitment, because the intra-Africa trade that holds the biggest opportunity for us to trade, using the great experiments we have already set up in the EAC, in Comercia, in Sadec, and in the Africa continental free trade area, we have the greatest potential and the greatest opportunity to be able to increase trade and investment, so that we can raise it from the past 30 or 15% at the moment to where other regions in Asia, in Europe, in America are at 60-70%. Ladies and gentlemen, it will be the biggest shame for us if while our brothers and sisters elsewhere in the globe are holding huge conferences in big tents to discuss investment and trade, and they are holding huge conferences in big conference halls to discuss trade and investment. Our people are in tents as refugees and displaced persons. It will be an indictment on us, the leaders of this continent, and that is why this assignment is an assignment we must not fail to discharge and to resolve. Canada joins the rest of the region in affirming its utmost respect for the total sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of Congo and for its territorial integrity. I also reiterate the full expectation that the East African Community Region Force will support and complement the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo in stabilizing and restoring law and order in eastern DRC. More critically, I call on the Force to collaborate with FADRC in supporting disarmament, demobilization, community recovery, and stabilization programs. As I conclude, I reiterate our commitment to support our great and current soldiers who continue to demonstrate their readiness to serve and sacrifice greatly for our countries and our peoples to live in peace, security, and stability. Their role is essential and our support for them is therefore vital. Canada has been, remains, and always will be a loyal and dependable partner of the DRC and a faithful member of our region in every mutually beneficial endeavor at all levels. Our determination to succeed remains stronger than ever, and our motivation even cleaner. God bless you. Thank you very much.