Armenia, 2003

We thank Jan Kavan

for his work, and we welcome Mr. Julian Hunte in the

difficult year that awaits him.

At the beginning of this millennium, a summit of

the world's leaders produced a set of development

goals aimed at protecting life and promoting dignity for

all peoples. This seemed an appropriate way to begin

the third millennium of our modern era.

Each year since then, however, we have been

reminded that this millennium started very differently

and has forced us to address profound challenges to our

assumptions, our relationships and our way of life.

Beginning with 11 September and continuing with the

violence and political crises around the world, each of

our societies, nations and regions has been transformed

by the intensity of these threats to our way of life and

to our security.

These crises are forcing a transformation of this

Organization as well. Today, reform has become

essential not just in the way we decide, act and operate,

but in the way we think. Reforms cannot be delayed if

this General Assembly and this Organization are to be

truly relevant as facilitators of world peace. If the

United Nations is for the peaceful, prosperous and

democratic development of today's world, then it must

undergo its own democratization, so that it will have

the increased moral authority to direct others through

reform and democratic transition.

An organization that espouses dialogue and

negotiation as alternatives to violence and conflict

ought to find ways through dialogue and negotiation to

arrive at a consensus on how to resolve the critical,

universal issues facing us today.

This General Assembly has the chance to go

down in history, not as an undermined, inadequate but

well-meaning giant, but as a viable instrument of world

peace. The Secretary-General's goals, from United

Nations budget and financing reform to reconstituting

and enlarging the Security Council, are the building

blocks of the relevant, responsive, comprehending,

world forum for international cooperation that the

United Nations can be. We applaud his decision to

empower a commission to give concrete form to the

wishes of many.

Each year we speak of the need for a

comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East,

never believing that next year, the region can become

even more volatile and explosive. We believe the

United Nations and all Member States must continue to

support the renewal of the full-scale peace process. In

Israel and Palestine, Armenia hails the Quartet's

efforts, recognizing that the endangered road map

remains the only viable option for peace in a long-

suffering region.

The situation in Iraq makes the debate about the

hows and whys of this conflict irrelevant. The world's

small countries are accustomed to making political

compromises to join the international flow. In Iraq, the

principal Powers, too, must compromise so that a more

engaged and empowered United Nations can rally a

broad range of countries from the immediate region, as

well as the rest of the world, to take on responsibility

in bringing democracy and stability to a critical part of

the Middle East.

It is ironic and in many ways lamentable that the

evil of terrorism is what has caused us to rally together.

We are fully aware that no single Government can

effectively fight this danger alone. Unfortunately, the

necessity for coherent measures and cooperation at

national, regional and international levels is often

stalled, as for example in our region, where a common

threat that knows no borders is not only being

addressed individually and in isolation, but also

exploited for political reasons.

In our region, there is much political exploitation.

The new Prime Minister of Azerbaijan made plain from

this podium yesterday that in his Government's

election year, they are willing, at their peril, to ignore

the realities which are self-evident. Nearly a decade of

negotiations brought us, two years ago, to Key West,

Florida, where, hosted by the United States

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Government and under the watchful eyes of the Minsk

Group Co-Chairmen, the President of Armenia and

whether the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan likes it or not

the President of Azerbaijan did in fact reach an

understanding which reflected those realities.

There are two myths in Azerbaijan today both

of them faulty, miscalculated and risky. Since 1992,

Azerbaijan has convinced itself that if they just hold

out long enough, Armenia's economy will capitulate,

and leave Nagorny Karabakh unprotected and

defenceless. Their calculations that a blockade of

Armenia would mean that our economic and social

conditions will plummet while their oil-based economy

grows have proven misguided and misinformed. Not

only has Armenia's economy not succumbed to

political pressures, but our rate of growth is greater

than Azerbaijan's and not only Azerbaijan's.

Nevertheless, they continue to cling to a second

and related myth. Dreaming of future oil sales whose

revenues will be used to buy armaments, Azerbaijan is

anticipating the day when it will again have the

resources to pursue a military solution. This is self-

deception, as well. Azerbaijan has forgotten that

similar fantasies led them to respond militarily to the

peaceful demands of Nagorny Karabakh's population

for self-determination in 1992. The military balance

was hugely in their favour then, in proportions far

greater than what they might hope for in the future.

Still, the moral, historical, legal and psychological

balance favoured the people of Nagorny Karabakh,

who were fighting for their homes, their families, their

security, their lives and their futures. The armaments of

Azerbaijan did not then and cannot ever break

the will of the people of Nagorny Karabakh to live

freely on their own land.

Indeed, Azerbaijanis are victims, but of their own

aggression. They started the war, one-sidedly. They began

massacring Armenians, citizens of the Azerbaijani cities

of Sumgait, Baku and Ganja the most irresponsible

reaction that a Government can undertake, using the

most inhuman methods associated with pogroms.

The war that followed changed the world for two

generations of Armenians, who have never lived under

Azerbaijani rule. Azerbaijan's leadership, old and new,

rather than remaining prisoners to the Soviet era which

they themselves rejected as historically illegitimate can

look to a future of compromise, peace, regional

cooperation and prosperous, stable development.

Armenia intends to go forward. Indeed, we

already have. The year 2003 has been a very good year

for Armenia. On the economic front, our steady,

double-digit growth rate is the fastest in the

Commonwealth of Independent States and in Europe.

This has led some to call Armenia the Caucasian tiger.

We are pleased with the name and the challenge. We

know that with economic growth comes an even

greater responsibility: to confront the social gaps which

can lead to social inequality and domestic instability.

The shortest path to the eradication of transitional ills

such as the polarization of society, the urban-rural gap

and uneven access to higher education is to sustain that

high level of economic growth.

That is why, with the help of the United Nations

Development Programme, we embarked on the

sustainable economic development programme. That is

why the Government has approved and launched a

poverty reduction strategy. It is also why achieving the

Millennium Development Goals for poverty eradication,

the awareness and prevention of HIV/AIDS and the

empowerment of women is an important part of

Armenia's development strategy.

In Armenia, the United Nations plays a key role

in promoting synergies directed at expanding the

development impact of information and

communications technologies. As we prepare for the

World Summit on the Information Society in December

in Geneva, Armenia is living a hopeful paradox. On the

one hand, less than half of our more than one thousand

schools are connected to the Internet; on the other

hand, information and communications technologies

(ICTs) comprise a significant proportion of Armenia's

exports today. Still, too many in our country just

like the majority of the world population still remain

untouched by the ICT revolution and its potential.

We recognize, of course, that ICTs can be central

in economies like ours, especially given the continuing

blockade. Our economic growth has continued despite

the blockade, which goes against the spirit and the

conclusions of the recent United Nations sponsored

International Ministerial Conference on Transit

Transport Cooperation, which reaffirmed the right of

access by landlocked countries to and from the sea and

their freedom of transit through the territory of their

neighbours by all means of transport, in accordance

with the applicable rules of international law. For us,

that means a condemnation of the practice of unilateral

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coercive economic measures intended as political

pressure.

This was also a good year for our legislative

reform process. The Armenian parliament has ratified

the Sixth Protocol of the European Convention for the

Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental

Freedoms, thus unconditionally abolishing the death

penalty. We also adopted the draft law on the

ombudsman, thus empowering our citizens and

investing them with the faith necessary to govern with

justice and to be governed with dignity.

Another matter that is important for us and for all

humanity: Armenia continues to engage countries and

Governments around the world to recognize and

condemn the first genocide of the twentieth century.

The survivors of the genocide and their descendants are

helping to build a democratic Armenia, committed to

the future without forgetting the past.

When Sergio Vieira de Mello visited Armenia

several years ago, he came looking for ways to

minimize the pain and suffering of Armenian refugees

forced to flee their homes in Baku and Sumgait in

Azerbaijan. This year, as he worked to minimize the

pain and suffering of the people of Iraq, to help them

rebuild their country and their Government, he and too

many of his colleagues lost their lives. His death and

that of Anna Lindh of Sweden remind us that ideas,

more than people, scare and threaten. Those two brutal

murders also suggest to us louder than any

demonstration that the leadership of the world still has

much to do in engaging the rejectionists, the extremists

and the cynical. Our positive, forward-looking,

determined steps here in the General Assembly will go

a long way towards convincing them.