United Arab Emirates, 2005

It is my pleasure to take this opportunity to

congratulate you on your election to the Presidency of

this session, which coincides with the sixtieth

anniversary of the United Nations. We hope that this

important session will provide a historic opportunity to

review and evaluate the achievements of this

Organization and to formulate a political and

development vision on strengthening our common

action and our ability to maintain international peace

and security and achieve sustainable development.

The United Arab Emirates welcomes the

Outcome Document of the High-level Plenary Meeting

and considers it a positive step towards achieving the

MDGs, especially those related to the four main fields,

namely development, peace and collective security,

human rights, rule of law and the strengthening of the

United Nations. At the same time, we hope that our

consultations on other unsolved issues will continue in

order to reach an international consensus.

In that context, we wish to reaffirm our position

calling for the reform of the United Nations, including

the increase of permanent and non-permanent

membership of the Security Council, based on a system

of equitable geographical distribution that ensures the

transparency of the Council’s working methods.

We emphasize the importance of reinforcing

international commitment to the principles of

international and humanitarian law and respect for the

sovereignty of States, including their cultural and

religious diversity and traditions. We also underline the

need to respect the resolutions and recommendations of

international legitimacy issued by world summits,

including the Millennium Declaration.

We affirm that the challenges of the twenty-first

century, including poverty, illiteracy, epidemics,

environmental degradation, global terrorism, organized

crime and the proliferation of weapons of mass

destruction, are by nature transnational and pose grave

threats to all humanity. Therefore, while we supported

the establishment of the Peacebuilding Commission,

which will assist countries recovering from civil and

regional wars, we call for the utilization of our human

cultures and beliefs in joint efforts to address such

challenges, including the holding of an international

conference on combating terrorism and its causes. Such

a conference must provide a clear definition of

terrorism, based on the principles of the United Nations

Charter and international law and norms, and must

distinguish between terrorism and the legitimate

25

struggle of peoples against foreign occupation. At the

same time, we reaffirm our support for the proposal of

the brotherly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to establish an

international centre to combat terrorism.

Firmly convinced of the importance of adopting

peaceful solutions in resolving disputes and issues of

foreign occupation, particularly in the Middle East and

the Arab Gulf region, the United Arab Emirates calls

upon the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to its

peaceful initiatives aimed at resolving the issue of

Iran’s occupation of the three islands of the United

Arab Emirates — Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu

Musa — through bilateral negotiations or by referral to

the International Court of Justice.

In that context, we reaffirm that all actions taken

by Iran since its illegal occupation of the three islands

in 1971 are null and void, because they contradict the

United Nations Charter, international law, the

principles of good neighbourliness and the peaceful

coexistence of nations and confidence-building

measures. In the light of the impact of that important

and delicate issue on the security and the stability of

the Arab Gulf region and on the entire world, the

United Arab Emirates, along with other countries of

the Gulf Cooperation Council, looks forward to the

Iranian Government’s review of its policy in that

regard. We also hope that Iran will take a transparent

and objective approach in its response to the repeated

peaceful initiatives of the countries of the region,

which call for the end of Iran’s occupation of the three

islands belonging to the United Arab Emirates and the

creation of a positive regional environment conducive

to the strengthening of cooperation, good

neighbourliness and mutual advantage among the

region’s countries and to prosperity and stability for its

peoples.

We are hopeful that the political transition

process in Iraq will be completed and, in that respect,

we renew our support for all efforts made by the Iraqi

Government to strengthen political dialogue among the

various Iraqi factions, achieve national reconciliation

and rebuild its national institutions so that Iraq can

maintain its unity, territorial sovereignty, independence

and stability, and can play its natural role in the region

and the world.

The United Arab Emirates welcomes Israel’s

withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the

northern West Bank and hopes that the international

community will urge Israel to complete its withdrawal

from the Arab and Palestinian territories occupied

since 1967, including the Syrian Golan and the

Lebanese Shaba’a farms, dismantle the separation wall

and discontinue its settlement plans and activities, in

accordance with the resolutions of international

legitimacy, the Arab peace initiative based on the land-

for-peace principle, and the Quartet’s road map.

Furthermore, the international community must

strengthen its support of the Palestinian Authority and

help it rebuild its national institutions and exploit its

natural and economic resources.

We also demand that Israel accede to the Treaty

on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and

submit its nuclear facilities to the supervision of the

International Atomic Energy Agency, in accordance

with the relevant United Nations resolutions calling for

the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass

destruction, including nuclear weapons, in the Middle

East and the Arab Gulf region.

In spite of the progress made in science and

information technology, the international community

continues to face a growing economic gap between the

North and the South. Therefore, we call for further

international efforts to address that imbalance,

including the greater participation of developing

countries in decision-making in economic and trade

matters, and for the commitment of industrialized

States to continue their support for development

programmes in the developing countries in order to

create a fair and just international economic

environment in which all peoples enjoy the benefits of

prosperity, well-being and development.

The United Arab Emirates has developed

humanitarian and financial assistance programmes to

assist developing countries and countries affected by

conflicts, civil and regional wars and natural disasters.

That assistance exceeds the percentage recommended

by international conferences on development and the

Millennium Development Goals. In that context, the

United Arab Emirates has adopted multifaceted

development policies and plans to keep pace with

international economic and development changes.

Those policies include human resources development,

the opening of the country’s markets to foreign trade

and the enhancement of the private sector’s role in

national development.

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In conclusion, we hope that our deliberations at

this session will result in a positive outcome that

strengthens our joint efforts to realize our peoples’

hope and ambition to live in a world in which security,

stability, peace, freedom and justice prevail.