Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Maldivian Foreign Minister Moosa Zameer at the Department of State, on June 25, 2024.
Transcript: https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-maldivian-foreign-minister-moosa-zameer-before-their-meeting/ ---------- Under the leadership of the President and Secretary of State, the U.S. Department of State leads America’s foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance by advancing the interests of the American people, their safety and economic prosperity. On behalf of the American people we promote and demonstrate democratic values and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world.
The Secretary of State, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is the President's chief foreign affairs adviser. The Secretary carries out the President's foreign policies through the State Department, which includes the Foreign Service, Civil Service and U.S. Agency for International Development.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good afternoon, everyone. It’s a great pleasure for me to
welcome Minister Zameer, my colleague from the Maldives, here to the State Department,
to Washington, I think your first visit in this job. Welcome, welcome, welcome.
For us, the Maldives is an important partner, and we want to make sure that we’re a good
partner to the Maldives. We stand together in working to make sure that we have a free
and open Indo-Pacific region. We stand together in dealing with the challenge
posed by climate change – a challenge to lives and livelihoods that we both take
very seriously, and where the Maldives is a leader and we, I hope, are a good,
effective partner. We’re working together to make sure that we have a secure maritime space,
and fundamentally work together to try to build a prosperous future for our people.
Very much appreciate you being here today, so that we can not only continue this work but deepen it
and continue to strengthen the partnership between the Maldives and the United States. So welcome.
FOREIGN MINISTER ZAMEER: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. It’s a pleasure to be here in
this beautiful city today, and I bring greetings from the Maldives, the president and the people
of Maldives. And I really look forward to have a very fruitful relationship with U.S., and, also,
I think we have had in the past governments as well. So, we will continue to be working together.
I think our teams are well in touch in the past couple of months, and since we took office,
and we really appreciate the fact that when – since we came into the government we have
had very high-level exchanges between our two countries. And I’m confident that the challenges
that we have in the future, we will be meeting together, and we will be able to overcome them.
Thank you.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone.
