United Arab Emirates, 2006

It gives me pleasure, on behalf of

the delegation of the United Arab Emirates, to extend

to you, Madam President, and to your fraternal country,

the Kingdom of Bahrain, our heartfelt congratulations

on your election to the presidency of the General

Assembly at its sixty-first session. We are confident

that your wide experience will enable you to deal

wisely and competently with the issues on our agenda,

and we wish you every success. We also take this

opportunity to commend your predecessor, Mr. Jan

Eliasson, for the skilful manner in which he managed

the work of the sixtieth session, and to thank Secretary-

General Kofi Annan for his outstanding efforts, which

have significantly contributed to strengthening the role

of this international organization in addressing the

challenges the world has faced during his term of

office.

In spite of all the expectations that we hoped

would be fulfilled in the areas of establishing peace

and collective security, development, strengthening

human rights and the rule of law, and reform of the

United Nations, we meet today amid extremely serious

security, political and economic conditions that have

resulted in increasing poverty and epidemics and have

prevented the sustainable development mechanisms

from achieving the desired development goals of the

2005 Summit. Instead of intensifying our efforts to

strengthen international relations and enhance positive

investment in economic globalization, we had to direct

our efforts towards finding temporary solutions for the

grave security threats facing our world today in many

regions.

The major weakness demonstrated by the

performance of some bodies of this international

organization, especially in those entrusted with

maintaining international peace and security, requires a

reconsideration of the ways to reform its main

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structures and working methods, particularly for the

Security Council. Most recent events have proved its

inability to take the immediate and effective measures

needed to stop acts of aggression and to end

occupation.

Therefore, as we study the proposals by the

Secretary-General for developing the work of the

Organization, we must ensure that reform is based on

the principles of equality among States in rights and

duties in order to ensure that developing and small

countries are increasingly and effectively represented

in the Security Council in accordance with the

principle of equitable geographical distribution. It is

also necessary to strengthen the working methods of

the Security Council to ensure that it does not infringe

upon the competencies of the Secretariat, the General

Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, so

that the performance and effectiveness of those bodies

can be strengthened and increased.

The United Arab Emirates — which collaborates

with the sisterly countries of the Gulf Cooperation

Council (GCC), the League of Arab States and other

groups in supporting all possible diplomatic and

mediation efforts aimed at containing the hotbeds of

tension and conflicts in the Middle East region,

including the Arabian Gulf — reiterates the importance

of resolving differences through peaceful means and of

strengthening confidence-building measures based on

the principle of respect for the sovereignty and

territorial integrity of States and non-interference in

their internal affairs. All this falls under our common

responsibility to maintain the requirements of regional

and international peace, security and stability.

Therefore, we ask the Islamic Republic of Iran to

demonstrate its goodwill towards finding a just and

lasting settlement for its occupation of the three United

Arab Emirates islands, Greater and Lesser Tunb and

Abu Musa, by responding to our country’s repeated

initiatives, which were endorsed by the Arab Gulf

Cooperation Council, the Council of the League of

Arab States and the international community. Those

initiatives call for initiating direct and serious

negotiations on this issue or referring it to the

International Court of Justice for legal arbitration.

We support the right of countries to use nuclear

energy for peaceful purposes under the safeguards of

the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). We

optimistically look forward to continuing the Iranian-

European talks on Iran’s nuclear question in order to

reach a lasting and peaceful settlement and to ensure

that the safety and security of the peoples and countries

of the region are not exposed to any threat, danger or

unnecessary new confrontations.

We also stress that the international community

must deal with this question with utmost transparency

so as to ensure the implementation of all relevant

resolutions of the United Nations, in particular those

calling for the establishment of a zone free from

weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear

weapons, in the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf.

That makes it incumbent upon Israel to accede to the

Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

and to subject all of its nuclear facilities to the IAEA

safeguards regime.

The United Arab Emirates supports the political

process in Iraq and efforts for its reconstruction, and

hopes that the efforts of the Iraqi Government will lead

to achieving national unity, consolidating security and

stability in Iraq, and implementing the

recommendations of the Abu Dhabi Declaration and

the New York conference on the International Compact

for the Reconstruction of Iraq.

We also reaffirm our full support for all regional

and international measures to combat terrorism in all

its forms and manifestations, as it constitutes a grave

threat to the security and sovereignty of States and

causes unjustified depletion of civilian lives and

properties. We also support international efforts aimed

at convening an international conference to define this

phenomenon, address its causes and set the standards

for differentiating between terrorism and the right of

people to self-determination.

As we all strive to create a suitable environment

for promoting dialogue among civilizations and

strengthening religious tolerance, we heard with regret

and surprise the recent statements by Pope Benedict

XVI, which gave an opportunity to the extremists to

deepen the gap of intolerance and to raise doubts about

the intentions of others. That makes it incumbent on us

to avoid repeating such statements in future in order to

promote further understanding between religions and

civilizations.

We are deeply concerned at the continued

inability of the international community to solve the

Palestinian question and establish peace in the Middle

East. That has encouraged Israel to continue its

occupation of the Palestinian territories, the Sheba’a

farms in Lebanon and the Syrian Golan, and to repeat

its aggressions on various levels. Therefore, we urge

the United Nations to respond today to the recent

29 06-52879

initiative of the League of Arab States, which calls

upon the international organization to play an effective

role in reviving the peace process in the Middle East

and resume direct negotiations on all tracks, in

accordance with resolutions of international legitimacy

and the Arab Peace Initiative.

We also affirm that consolidation of peace and

stability in the Middle East region cannot be achieved

through military power or the continued and deliberate

destruction of the infrastructure in the Palestinian

territories and in Lebanon, but through compelling

Israel to ensure its full compliance with international

resolutions, including the resumption of negotiations

with the Palestinian Authority and the release of

Palestinian funds and the thousands of Palestinian

detainees and prisoners. Israel is further requested to

open the crossing points to secure delivery of

emergency humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian

people, to remove settlements and the separation wall

and to withdraw fully from all the Palestinian

territories occupied since 1967, including East

Jerusalem, so that the establishment of an independent

Palestinian State, with Al-Quds al-Sharif as its capital,

can be declared.

We welcome the considerable efforts by the

Lebanese Government to extend its control throughout

its national territories, with the support of the United

Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. In this regard we

demand that the international community intensify its

pressures on Israel to compel it to fulfil its legal

obligations, as provided in Security Council resolution

1701 (2006), including its full respect for Lebanon’s

sovereignty and territorial integrity, handing over maps

of landmines and entering into negotiations on the

exchange of prisoners. We also affirm the importance

of doubling the international assistance directed to the

reconstruction of Lebanon.

As for the Sudan — and following up the

circumstances relating to Security Council resolution

1706 (2006) — we had hoped that the Sudan would

have been given sufficient time to resolve the Darfur

question internally. We declare our support for the

efforts of the Sudanese Government to find a lasting

solution to this question. We hope that the United

Nations and the African Union will continue their

positive role in this regard, in conformity with the Arab

League’s efforts, in order to maintain the sovereignty,

territorial integrity and independence of the Sudan.

We also call for strengthening of the efforts and

endeavours to reconcile political differences and

disputes in regions such as Somalia, Afghanistan, other

African countries and troubled regions of the world in

order to contain tensions and conflicts in those regions

and assist their peoples to realize their aspirations

towards permanent peace, stability and prosperity.

The United Arab Emirates, which incorporated

the Millennium Development Goals in its national

development policy and has come a long way in the

process of achieving economic and human

development, has extended generous assistance to

many poor and affected countries. In this regard, the

United Arab Emirates would like to stress that with the

ongoing problems of poverty, infectious diseases and

unemployment, in addition to other economic, social

and environmental problems, the international

community must develop a firm and effective

international mechanism that ensures a continuous flow

of assistance to developing countries so as to enable

them to improve their living conditions and build their

national economies.

It is incumbent upon the advanced States,

especially the Group of Eight, to fulfil their

commitments as agreed at international conferences,

especially in easing the onerous commercial conditions

imposed on developing countries’ trade, on their efforts

to attract foreign capital and investment and on their

use of advanced technology for peaceful purposes, in

order to avoid marginalizing those countries and to

ensure better participation for them in international

trade.

Finally, we hope that our deliberations on the

agenda items during this session will have a positive

outcome that will contribute to addressing the critical

issues we face today, and that they will enhance our

common efforts to create a world based on the

principles of the rule of law, justice, tolerance and

peace.