Bahrain, 1993

At the outset, I take pleasure, Sir, in congratulating

you sincerely, on behalf of the delegation of the State of

Bahrain’s delegation, on your election as President of the

Assembly at this session. As you assume your important

task, it is my pleasure also to wish you success in carrying

out your duties and to assure you of my delegation’s full

cooperation with you in making the work of this session a

success.

I take this opportunity to convey thanks and

appreciation to your predecessor, Mr. Stoyan Ganev, who

conducted the proceedings of the last session with skill and

efficiency.

It is also my pleasure to mention with great

appreciation the continuing efforts of the Secretary-General,

His Excellency Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, to further the

objectives of the United Nations and his tireless drive to

enhance the Organization’s role in maintaining international

peace and security.

I should also like to take this opportunity to extend our

warmest congratulations to the delegations of the Slovak

Republic, the Czech Republic, the Former Yugoslav

Republic of Macedonia, Eritrea, the Principality of Monaco

and the Principality of Andorra on their accession to the

membership of the United Nations.

Because of the important issues on our agenda, this

session of the General Assembly is a significant one indeed.

These issues under consideration demand close attention, if

we are to benefit from the object lessons of the past in

formulating future parameters, as is required by the

ever-accelerating changes in the international arena. As we

look at the historical events, that have followed upon one

another, we find that the world is in the midst of a

qualitative transformation that is virtually unprecedented. If

we examine the causes and aspects of that transformation,

we shall find that the conflict that raged between the eastern

and the western blocs was no mere ideological dispute

articulated in academic forums. Rather, it was a violent

political type of rivalry that escalated into grave military

confrontations that were, at times, direct and at others,

indirect, between the super-Powers. The past few years,

however, have witnessed the end of that conflict, and this in

turn has entailed major changes in the political outlook of

various world Powers.

It is regrettable indeed that, in the midst of these

changes, new problems have surfaced and have thus

strengthened our conviction that the ending of the cold war

will not make the world a more secure and stable place. For

all its conflicts and tensions the cold war, when it ended,

contrary to all expectations has brought to the surface the

banes of extreme nationalism and such aberrations as "ethnic

cleansing", things which had been dormant in Eastern

Europe and Central Asia.

This has led, in certain regions, to acts of violence that

threaten to change the very nature of relations between

States at a time when the path of international politics has

become really bumpy as a result of the restructuring of the

world order. This is a time of profound change in the lives

Forty-eighth session - 6 October 1993 5

of States and nations in which people’s aspirations after

stability and development merge with the fears generated by

the gap between a developed, affluent world and a world

that is unable to meet the minimum requirements of decent

living.

The major transformations that are taking place today,

in the areas of politics, technology and information,

underscore the fact that our world has become a truly global

village and that the scientific revolution is about to bring

down the barriers and boundaries between its various

countries and regions. It is regrettable indeed, at such a

juncture, that while we stand on the threshold of a new

century of man’s history, we perceive that the interests of

humanity lag behind the advances made by science and

technology. It is paradoxical indeed that the increased

interdependence dictated by the developments that are taking

place at the present time should go hand in hand with

political fragmentation and clash of interests as individual

States pursue their own narrow interests and ambitions.

Such a situation should urge us to look at what is going

on around us with a large magnifying glass so that we may

be able to fathom the depths of international problems and

scrutinize their interlocking strands on the wider screen of

the global scene. If we take the measure of the rapid

changes in the international arena, we may be able to foresee

the enormity of the dangers that the future may bring and

the extent of the harm to peoples’ security and stability that

may result therefrom. For, in a world whose spaces and

distances have shrunk and whose different parts have come

closer together more than at any other time before, peace

cannot be achieved in one region while the peace of another

region is left at the mercy of tensions. It is therefore

incumbent upon us all to develop a practical strategy for the

future through a new outlook that would be capable of

grasping and understanding the nature and drift of the

changes and harnessing them in the service of humanity as

a whole and for the strengthening of security throughout the

world.

After this introduction, which reflects the way we see

the past and look at the present, my delegation should like

to share with you certain thoughts on the building of the

post-cold-war world:

Firstly: there should be agreement on new concepts

concerning the issues of world peace and development

that would rid the world of the residues and perceptions

of the ideological and strategic thinking that prevailed

throughout the cold-war period;

Secondly: appropriate criteria should be defined for the

achievement of world stability through the common

security of all States;

Thirdly: existing and traditional boundaries between

States should be respected, and all boundary disputes

should be resolved by peaceful means that are agreed

upon by the parties concerned; and

Fourthly: there should be support for the United

Nations, as the appropriate international tool for the

establishment of a new international order where

justice, equality, respect for international resolutions

and the abandonment of double standards prevail.

War and peace are inseparable opposites. Given this

perspective, the most difficult task in international politics is

to devise an effective machinery to prevent the causes of

war on the one hand, and to preserve, maintain or keep the

peace, on the other. It is our conviction that current

international developments have created favourable

conditions for making use of the United Nations potential to

create a political climate that would be favourable for

developing the foundations of a collective security system.

Here it should be pointed out that one of the most

important means suggested for promoting collective security

is the use of preventive diplomacy to prevent disputes from

arising between parties and to prevent existing disputes from

escalating, and the development of preventive deployment of

United Nations forces in such a way as to allow those forces

to defuse potential tensions in any region of the world. We

hope that Member States will reach a consensus on the

formation of such forces, and that cooperation between the

United Nations and regional organizations can be enhanced

so that the regional organizations’ experience and their

human and material resources in the field of peace-keeping

can be tapped.

In this context, I applaud the current cooperation

between the United Nations and the League of Arab States

and emphasize the importance of enhancing and

strengthening the existing relations between the two

organizations in all fields.

The United Nations now approaches its fiftieth

anniversary. The peoples of the world, with their hopes and

aspirations, continue to look to the Organization to lead the

way to the turning of a new leaf in the history of

international relations so that they can finally enjoy the

security, peace and stability for which they have long

yearned.

6 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

The world Organization has managed, since its

beginnings, to achieve some of the purposes of the Charter,

but has failed to achieve others. It is now at a juncture

where new hopes, accompanied by new problems, have

arisen. Over the last five decades, the membership of the

Organization has risen from 51 States in 1954 to 184 in

1993. This calls for restructuring the Organization’s

principal organs, especially the Secretariat and the Security

Council. We welcome the Secretary-General’s statement, in

his Agenda for Peace, that important steps have been taken

to reorganize the Secretariat in order to avoid duplication

and overlapping of functions and to enhance its

effectiveness. We call for further reforms to be effected,

methodically, so that the Secretariat can perform its duties to

the optimum.

As for the Security Council and its role in the

maintenance of international peace and security, the

development of this important organ and the review of the

provisions relating to its membership have recently been the

object of world attention. Consequently, the General

Assembly has included in the agenda of its forty-eighth

session an item entitled "Question of equitable representation

on and increase in the membership of the Security Council".

The inclusion of this item has taken place in response

to the desire of many States to emphasize the importance of

adequate and equitable representation in the membership of

this important organ in line with the increase in the

membership of the Organization and the glaring disparity

between the composition of the Council and the membership

of the United Nations. From 20 per cent in 1945, the

proportion has dropped to 8 per cent now. We support the

call for a review of the composition of the Security Council

that would ensure equitable geographical representation.

I should like, in this connection, to refer to the

resolution adopted by the Arab League Council at its regular

session, held in Cairo from 19 through 21 September 1993,

which calls upon the United Nations to take due

consideration of the need for equitable geographical

representation and to establish a permanent seat on the

Security Council for the Arab Group.

We should like to stress that it is vitally important to

ensure that in adopting any of the proposed formulas for

increasing the membership of the Security Council, care

must be taken that this should not lead to impeding the

proper functioning by the Council in carrying out its duties,

and that the power of veto should not be used as a means of

undermining the decision-making process or of diluting the

urgent nature of critical issues, especially those which have

to do with peace and security.

In recent weeks, a ray of hope that augurs well for the

future of world peace has appeared on the horizon of the

Middle East and the world at large: namely, the accord

signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and

Israel. We have consistently encouraged any sign of

movement towards a peaceful, just and comprehensive

settlement of the Palestine question. There is firm hope

today that this step will be a precursor to a real opening for

peace and stability in the Middle East region.

While we welcome this significant and historic step, we

view it as a first step on the road to a just, lasting and

comprehensive solution to the Palestine question and the

Arab-Israeli conflict, based on Security Council resolutions

242 (1967) and 338 (1973) and other resolutions of

international legality as well as the land-for-peace principle.

We hope that efforts will continue to be made towards the

speedy implementation of the provisions of the accord and

that the negotiations between other Arab parties and Israel

will make progress on the other tracks so that the existing

opportunities for peace may be put to good use.

We look forward to the day when the Israeli forces will

withdraw from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, including

Holy Jerusalem, the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and the

occupied Lebanese and Jordanian territories, and to the day

when the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people,

including the right of return for the Palestinian refugees, will

be guaranteed, in consonance with relevant United Nations

resolutions.

It should be emphasized that stability in the Middle

East is fully dependent on its being freed from chemical,

biological and nuclear weapons. Declaring the Middle East

a region free of weapons of mass destruction would enable

its States to focus their attention on questions of economic,

scientific and technological development and would

encourage them to cooperate in the field of peaceful uses of

nuclear energy and to make a constructive contribution to the

maintenance of world peace.

Two devastating wars have swept over the Gulf, and

their consequences have adversely affected development in

the area. It behooves us, therefore, to intensify efforts to

keep that important area free of any further tensions, through

the settlement of disputes by peaceful means and through

respect for the principles of territorial integrity and political

independence, the sovereignty of States over their own

resources, non-interference in the internal affairs of other

Forty-eighth session - 6 October 1993 7

States and strict observance of the norms of international

legality.

We should like to emphasize the need for Iraq to

implement Security Council resolutions relevant to its

aggression against the State of Kuwait, and in particular the

provisions of Security Council resolution 687 (1991)

relating, inter alia, to the release of Kuwaiti and other

prisoners of war and detainees, and to recognize the

international boundaries between Kuwait and Iraq as

demarcated and set out in Security Council resolution

833 (1993).

We also hope that the dialogue between the United

Arab Emirates and the Islamic Republic of Iran will lead to

the settlement of all outstanding questions regarding the

three islands of Abu Mousa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb

in a manner that would guarantee the rights of the United

Arab Emirates as set out in the resolutions of the Gulf States

Cooperation Council.

The international arena has witnessed some

development, this year, in relation to the situation in

Somalia. Although that situation continues to irk the

conscience of the international community, the United

Nations has been able, through the efforts of a large number

of its members, to restore peace in most parts of Somalia.

Security Council resolution 814 (1993) has had a positive

effect in improving the situation after the drawn out

suffering experienced by the people of that country. We

should like to voice support for United Nations efforts to

rebuild the political, economic and social infrastructure of

Somalia. We hope that the Somali people will be able to

reach comprehensive national reconciliation between the

various factions.

The world has been following the tragic situation in

Bosnia and Herzegovina. Despite all the efforts deployed in

an attempt to contain the conflict, we see no glimmer of

hope that aggression against that country will cease. The

Serbian side rejected the Vance-Owen peace plan, while the

Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina accepted it. Massacres

and acts of aggression against Bosnian cities continue

unabated, and the Serb forces have committed the most

atrocious crimes of genocide and "ethnic cleansing" in open

defiance of the international community. Yet the Security

Council has not taken any effective measure to suppress the

aggression or to enable the legitimate Bosnian Government

to defend itself. That, surely, sends the wrong message to

all those who do not believe in the system of international

collective security and could give rise to a surge of violence

and extremism that would have an adverse effect on the

United Nations endeavours to contain existing and potential

conflicts in the world.

The international community is duty-bound to move

urgently to stop the aggression against the Republic of

Bosnia and Herzegovina, to safeguard the legitimate rights

of its people, to force the aggressors to comply with the

principles of international legality, to prevent any

demographic change or any territorial gains through the

policy of fait accompli pursued by the Serbs and the Croats,

and to enable the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to

exercise the right of self-defence by lifting the embargo on

arms supplies to it.

It is regrettable, at a time when the features of a new

world order are beginning to take shape, that Central Asia

should be in the grip of a situation of instability that

threatens to tear it apart. Internal strife continues without let

up in Tajikistan and Georgia and the war between Armenia

and Azerbaijan has grown even more vicious. In this

connection, my delegation supports Security Council

resolutions 822 (1993) and 853 (1993), which reaffirm the

sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and of all

other States in the region and the inadmissibility of the use

of force for the acquisition of territory. We reaffirm our

endorsement of the efforts made by the United Nations and

regional organizations to restore stability in that region.

For years, the Cyprus problem has continued to defy

solution. We are encouraged, however, by the efforts of the

Secretary-General to bring the two Cypriot parties closer to

agreement. Despite the remaining obstacles that obstruct the

settlement of this problem, it is our view that the good

offices of the Secretary-General should continue until a

solution that would be satisfactory to both parties may be

reached.

With regard to the situation in Cambodia, positive

results have been achieved, and the United Nations, through

the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia

(UNTAC), has been able to restore political stability to that

country. We should like on this occasion to extend our

sincere congratulations to the people and Government of

Cambodia on the outcome of their efforts in pursuit of

national reconciliation and peace. We also commend the

constructive efforts of UNTAC in carrying out its mandate

in Cambodia.

South Africa is now going through a significant and

crucial phase in its march towards political reform. The

main features of this reform are the agreement on the

drafting of a new constitution, the formation of a new

8 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

transitional multi-party Government, and the agreement to

hold constitutional elections in April 1994. These

developments demonstrate the sincere desire of all parties in

South Africa to turn a new leaf in their relations. We

support the reforms currently under way in South Africa and

welcome Nelson Mandela’s call, in his recent address at the

United Nations, for lifting the economic sanctions now in

place against South Africa.

Although the fires of the cold war have been put out

and have become something of the past, we cannot but voice

our concern over the numerous difficulties which continue

to beset the world economy. The gap is still wide between

the average per capita income in developing countries and

that in developed countries. In 1992, that figure was over

$18,000 in the developed countries, while in the developing

countries it did not exceed $800. There are distressing

indications that the rate of world economic growth lags

behind the rate of world population growth.

The continuing social deterioration and lack of

economic security which result from continuous political

upheavals will undoubtedly impede economic development

in the long term. So long as the world economy continues

to stagnate, the urgent social problems connected with the

economy, in the areas of population, health, housing and

environment, will continue to defy solution.

Any change in the world economy, whether it be

negative or positive, affects every State. The world

economy stands in need of the political will that should lead

all the States of the world, especially the developed

countries, to cooperate in solving those problems that face us

all. This makes it incumbent upon us all to strengthen the

role of the United Nations, as the Organization that has

continued for about half a century, to embrace the countries

of the world with the distinctive and varied experiences each

and every country has gained in the areas of developmental

coordination and cooperation.

Over the past decades, the world has been focusing on

economic development owing to the immediate and speedy

returns it generates for the world economy. Voices have

been raised in the United Nations, in recent years, urging

that attention should be paid to social development as well.

This has led to the adoption by the General Assembly of

resolution 47/92, in which it decided to convene a World

Summit for Social Development early in 1995. We hope

that those in charge of preparations for that conference will

reach agreement to further those objectives of the Charter set

out in Article 55, relating to the promotion of higher

standards of living, conditions of economic and social

progress and development as well as to the resolution of

international economic and social problems.

Our planet faces man-made environmental threats

whose consequences are unpredictable. The Earth Summit

in Rio de Janeiro was an important step towards world

partnership in combating those environmental threats. We

should like, in this context, to reiterate our support for the

efforts to contain the threats to our environment, and we

hope that the programmes adopted by the Rio Summit,

especially those included in Agenda 21, will be

implemented.

The attention focused on population problems stems

from the tremendous density of population in some countries

and the adverse effects that density has on development. We

welcome the efforts by the United Nations and particularly

by the United Nations Population Fund, to address such

issues. We hope that the International Conference on

Population and Development scheduled to be held in Cairo

next year, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 47/176,

will adopt recommendations that may ensure the resolution

of urgent population and development problems in the next

decade.

Several years have passed since the world first

witnessed that novel, unique situation in the history of

international relations, namely the ending of bipolarity. The

result of this is that the world now stands at the crossroads

of history, where it faces difficult challenges. This is

especially so because certain evil tendencies have caused the

eruption of volcanoes of malevolent hatreds and racism,

which have destroyed many hopes and shattered the

expectations of millions of people to achieve security and

prosperity for future generations.

It may be appropriate to stop here and wonder whether

the United Nations has done all it should to address the

problems that have surfaced due to this major transformation

in world order? Has the machinery which we and many

others have called for been made available to the world

Organization to enable it to fulfil its role in a manner that is

compatible with the developments of our time? Even if the

United Nations has moved as we had hoped, have the

Member States made available to it the material and moral

resources to enable it to take effective action to address all

of the world problems, wherever they may appear?

We do not believe anyone in today’s world searches for

the Utopia described in Plato’s Republic or Farabi’s Ideal

City. Yet everyone would like to see the United Nations

made able to achieve practical solutions for world problems.

Forty-eighth session - 6 October 1993 9

For it is our conviction that any blood shed by a hand

prompted by an ethnic bigotry or racial hatred would be a

clear indication of our failure to respond to the aspirations

of all our peoples.

It is in this context that we call for resorting to reason

in trying to understand the new phenomena and to deal with

political, economic and social problems in a rational and

dispassionate manner. The time has come for issues relating

to international and regional security and development to be

put in their proper realistic perspectives, without any

idealistic flights of fancy. Such problems should be dealt

with in the light of the objective realities of the world we

live in with all its successive developments, so that the

solutions devised for them may be applicable in the current

atmosphere of inter-State rivalries. We are confident that,

with political will, material support and moral

encouragement, it will be possible for the United Nations to

perform its role in steering the ship of hope towards the

shores of security and peace we all seek.