Secretary of State Marco Rubio celebrated the peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda at a State Department signing ceremony.
00:00Thank you. And I'm honored all of you are here today. I'm honored to be joined by my counterparts from the Democratic Republic of Congo and from Rwanda and the hard work you both put in to make this happen. This was not easy. And there's still work to be done, obviously, in terms of implementation. But we're very honored you're both here. It's been an honor to work with both of you. We have a lot of people to thank. Obviously, the great team here at the Department of State who did a great job. Mr. Boulos, who did a phenomenal job. He's been on the job now about 10 weeks and he's jumped all over this.
00:30He really worked it hard and you did a great job. And we are grateful to you for all of your work. Obviously, this could not have happened without such close friends and partners in the African Union and in Qatar. We're working a lot lately with Qatar. We're doing a lot of things with you guys. And you've been very instrumental in the African Union. This couldn't have happened. I mean, you may put everybody together. I do want to recognize my, what I say, former colleagues. It wasn't six months ago I was still a senator, but they're here now.
00:59Senators Rounds and Risch. Senator Risch is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a very close friend of mine. And he's obviously watched this issue very closely. He's made it a priority.
01:09And Senator Rounds has been talking to me about this before I was even nominated to the position and even during the nomination process. And we have others who are not able to make it today that I also want to recognize.
01:18Senator Coons and Booker. There's been a lot of interest in this and we're grateful to all of them. They were invited, but I guess, you know, there's stuff going on in the Senate, as you know.
01:28But we're grateful that both of you are here and it's instrumental. This is an important moment after 30 years of war. President Trump is a president of peace. He really does want peace. He prioritizes it above all else.
01:41We saw his intervention in the conflict between India and Pakistan. We saw his intervention most recently as a few days ago in a very dangerous war, right, a very dangerous war that could have really spiraled out of control.
01:52And his intervention made that possible. And there are other places that we want to see this. But we're very excited about this. And we can't wait to have the heads of state, the presidents of the respective countries here in Washington in a few weeks to finalize the complete protocol and agreement.
02:08But today is an important step in that direction. And we're grateful to be able to host it here at the Department of State. And just thinking, you know, we think sometimes about peace. It's not just about ending wars.
02:17It's about, and it's not just about saving lives. It's about allowing people to live. It's about allowing people to now have dreams and hopes for a better life, for prosperity, for economic opportunity, for family reunification, for all the things that make life worth living.
02:31Those things become impossible when there's war and when there's conflict. So we're grateful to have played the role we've played. We acknowledge and recognize there's still more work to be done.
02:40But we thank you all very much for being a part of this historic and important day. This is really why I wanted this job or why I embraced this job so much is moments like this.
02:52This is, in essence, the Department of State is really the Department of Peace. It's designed to bring people together, both in our relations with other countries, but to the extent we can use the stature and the influence of the United States to bring others together.
03:04It makes the world a better place. And I honestly believe that when there's peace in the world among friends who may have disagreements and conflict, it does make help America.
03:13It does help make America stronger and safer and more prosperous. It gives us people, partners we can do business with and partners that we can work with to address insecurity and threats to our national security and to our collective national security.
03:26So we are grateful to both of you. I know how hard this was and how much work went into it. And we know there's more work to be done.
03:33But we are grateful to have you here today. We're honored to be a part of this. We're excited to be a part of it. And again, I do want to thank everyone here in our Africa Bureau and at the Department of State.
03:42And once again, our superstar there, Mr. Boulos. What do you want to do next after you've done this?
03:47So that, yeah, very important. Actually, very, very important. And you're very involved in that as well. So what are you guys doing this week in Qatar?
03:54You guys want to work on that? We are grateful to all of you. Thank you. Thank you.
