Armenia, 2005

Let me first welcome

you, Sir, to your position. I know we will enjoy

working with you, given our past experience. Let me

also express our appreciation to the outgoing President

for the leadership that he provided during the previous

session.

When the Millennium Summit was held in 2000,

in another New York and another era and before

unspeakable events overtook our agenda, the lack of

universal economic development was the supreme

challenge and security concern that we had. That is

why the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were

created. It took the commitment and firm belief of

almost 200 of our world leaders to come up with

simple, obvious, straightforward objectives, which I

think can be best summed up by Amartya Sen’s

eloquent formulation, “Development as freedom”. Five

years later, I think these goals are still relevant and

they are no less imperative. Pretending that anything

less would do is, I think, disingenuous, dangerous and

unfair.

If, today, our focus is on global security, and we

all clearly understand and see that the path to security

passes through development, then we should recall

Eleanor Roosevelt, who 60 years ago, working on the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, stated that

men in need were not free. Indeed, only with the

realization of these Goals can we enable men to live in

greater freedom.

In Armenia, where our resources are very limited

but the will of people is very strong, we have been

experiencing good economic growth. In the past four

or five years, we have indeed seen double-digit

economic growth, and we understand that our biggest

challenge today is to translate that high economic

growth into progress in human development. Each year

in Armenia we look forward to the publication of the

Human Development Report because we see it as a sort

of report card that shows how our country is doing. In

the past four or five years we have been making steady

progress. This year we placed eighty-third, ahead of all

of our neighbours.

While we should not underestimate this progress,

on the other hand, we do not want to exaggerate it. We

have to look at this index, at its promise, and see what

problems we facing that we need to address and what

gaps need to be filled.

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First, we have to accelerate our efforts to reduce

the level of poverty in our country. Societies are judged

by the way they treat their most vulnerable. In

Armenia, the poor are in the rural areas and we have to

make sure that economic development can trickle out

to our rural areas from the cities. For us, economic

development is comprehensive rural development. It is

our plan to identify those areas that can provide

opportunity for rural people so that they can develop

and unleash their capacity for production. Just as with

the MDGs, there must be a partnership between rich

and poor. In our case, we are trying to create such a

partnership so that we reduce the numbers of poor in

our country more rapidly.

Secondly, we have to turn democracy into a tool

for development. Democracy means not only elections.

Democracy and democratic institutions are not simply

ends for their own sake. They have to provide, and

they will provide, a better environment for political

and economic development. We think we need to

create transparent, solid, open institutions so that we

can limit the action of the elite, and create a level

playing field for the entire population.

We are pleased with the ranking that we have

achieved. But we are satisfied only because we know

we have achieved this against all odds: against our

geography, against our history and against attempts in

our region to isolate Armenia.

Armenia is a small, landlocked country. We do

not have the natural resources our neighbours have. It

has become customary to say that our greatest natural

resource is our population, and indeed it is. But let me

say that, if we had the oil resources, we would have

used those revenues to double our education budget,

because we understand that education is development.

Education creates dreams for our youth and provides

the means to achieve them. If we had the oil revenues,

we would double our social security budget, because

we clearly see that there is a gap between the dreams of

our people and the prospects of achieving them. If we

had the oil revenues, we would double our efforts in

the area of environmental protection, because that is

the best investment a society can make.

But one thing we would not do is to double our

military budget. We will not create imaginary outside

enemies to justify our own inaction and failures. We

will not pretend that there are simplistic, fanatical

solutions to complicated social and economic

problems. In other words, we think the military option

is not available as a tool in domestic and foreign

policy.

When it comes to regional conflicts, advocating

military solutions is not only unrealistic but is also a

clear manifestation of a patent lack of understanding of

democracy, rule of law and human rights. The founders

of this institution, the United Nations, clearly indicated

and knew that security, development and human rights

go hand in hand.

But self-determination is a human right and the

people of Nagorny Karabakh have aspired to it, fought

for it and earned it. They had to face the aggression of

a Government they did not choose, but they fought for

self-determination and they earned it. It was a fight

that was not of their choosing and the right they fought

for was neither abstract nor excessive. What they want

is what we all want, the right to live on their own land,

in their own homes, in dignity, safety and security.

The people of Karabakh have achieved that, and

subsequently they have demonstrated to the world that

they can sustain their de facto independence, that they

can rule themselves, create democratic institutions and

conduct elections.

Countries like mine come to such gatherings and

meetings with huge expectations, because we want to

contribute, to participate and to be involved in the give

and take. But, if you think that because I am the

Minister for Foreign Affairs of what is obviously a

small country, and frankly, an imperfect one, I do not

have the right to expound on our common future, allow

me for a moment to speak, not as a foreign minister,

but as a citizen of the world.

The prospect of United Nations reform is only the

beginning of achieving the promise of a world

Organization that would better resemble the realities of

the current world. If we cannot find common ground, if

we cannot agree to reform this institution today or

tomorrow or next week or this year, I believe that one

day we will have to do it. We cannot simply go on

pretending that we do not know our history. We cannot

go on pretending that the world has not changed. We

cannot go on pretending that we do not understand that

there are new realities. It is not 1945 any longer.

Still, it is very encouraging that the principles

enshrined in the United Nations Charter — written

three generations ago — remain valid, relevant and

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significant today. That is because the spirit of San

Francisco in 1945, and the global Charter that was

forged there, were revolutionary. The Charter affirmed

the obligation and accountability of one generation to

another, of one State to another other, and that together,

States can and must create a safer world. The formula

that was worked out then to achieve those goals

worked.

Today, we need to rework that formula,

reaffirming, first and foremost, our responsibility and

accountability to our citizens and Governments, the

responsibility of international institutions to their

members and of States to each other.

We need to democratize international relations

and international institutions. We need fair, earned

representation around the decision-making table.

Earned representation: that is, countries that are

committed to democracy, human rights and the rule of

law should have the right to sit on the Human Rights

Council; countries that are serious about social and

economic development should occupy seats on the

Economic and Social Council; and countries that are

committed to world peace and security, that are serious

about the dignity of the world community, should

assume a leadership role in the world community.

Those are not ambitious goals. It is only natural

that our national interests will differ. That is why the

United Nations must step in to fill the gap, enabling us

to work together in exchange for commitment and

action.

It all boils down to our accountability to our

children. What will we say to our children if we do not

achieve the Millennium Development Goals in the next

decade, when we are living in an era that has witnessed

the creation of huge wealth in the world economy, but

where half of the world’s population still lives in

poverty, far from benefiting from the fruit of that

growth? What if we, in our region, miss the

opportunity to make peace and put war, its

consequences and its legacy, behind us? How, then, are

we going to be able to look our children in the face?

What if we reject that chance to learn from our past, to

come to terms with our history, if we refuse to take our

common and joint responsibility to intervene and

prevent conflict, letting Governments time and again

commit torture, ethnic cleansing and genocide against

their own populations? What will we then tell our

children?

When the United Nations was created 60 years

ago, it gave the people of the world hope and faith in

their leaders, in their future and in the lives of their

children. Today, having witnessed the huge calamities

and catastrophes, both man-made and natural, which

have occurred recently, there is a clear need to restore

the faith of the peoples of the world.

Looking at the damage caused by last year’s

Asian tsunami and the recent Hurricane Katrina,

looking at the violence that is being perpetrated in

Darfur and the carnage that we witnessed in London,

we are questioning ourselves, our neighbours and our

assumptions. The answer must be united momentum,

united effort, united resources and united action by

nations united. The United Nations can still be that

answer.