Algeria, 2003

Mr. President, I would like to congratulate you most

warmly on your election as President of the fifty-eighth

session of the General Assembly, whose proceedings

will undoubtedly benefit from your personal qualities

and your skills and experience in international

relations. I am also certain that you are an excellent

successor to an excellent predecessor.

I would like also to pay tribute to our Secretary-

General, for his determined efforts and dedication to

the service of world peace and the fulfilment of the

purposes of the United Nations.

The current session of the General Assembly

takes place in a complex international situation

characterized by mounting threats that imperil the

purposes and role of our Organization.

Indeed, recent developments have marked the

opening of a new phase of instability, uncertainty and

apprehensiveness, highlighting the dangers arising

from the side-stepping of our Organization in the

conduct of world affairs. More than ever before, the

Organization’s irreplaceable role is brought to the fore,

as a universal forum responsible for maintaining an

international order based on peace, security and

cooperation for development.

The international community finds itself squarely

faced with the duty to restore its cohesion and mobilize

its means and energy towards full rehabilitation of the

United Nations, through the upholding, by all, of the

Charter’s purposes and principles, which constitute the

indispensable foundations for a civilized international

society.

We have to revive the strong momentum gained

as a result of the Millennium Summit and further

enhanced and carried forward through the role played

by the United Nations in organizing a collective

response against terrorism in the wake of the wanton

attacks of 11 September 2001. Those attacks were truly

barbaric.

Peace, security, and development issues are at the

core of the mission of our Organization. Today, they

require a renewal of our commitment to international

cooperation, especially since we live in an increasingly

interdependent world, where problems are also closely

interrelated.

We strongly support the view that the United

Nations remains the best place where Member States

should join in collective endeavours in their quest for

the common good. We should cooperate within the

framework of our Organization and work together to

promote development and compliance with

international law, in order to lay the foundations for a

stable and secure world rooted in solidarity.

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Therefore, strengthening our Organization and

improving its effectiveness stands as a collective task,

a top priority and a shared responsibility of all Member

States that seek to prevent crisis situations, address

threats to international peace and security, and ensure

necessary conditions for sustainable development.

Among the challenges that should be confronted by the

international community, I will dwell on terrorism first,

because preventing and combating terrorism still

requires a high level of vigilance, mobilization and

multifaceted cooperation at the national, regional and

international levels.

At the risk of repeating ourselves, we will

continue to warn against all misconceptions and the

tendentious association of terrorism with a particular

religion, civilization or geographical area. Equally, we

need to agree upon an accurate definition of terrorism,

so as not to affect national liberation struggles and the

legitimate right of peoples to self-determination. Such

a clarification should be provided as part of the draft

global convention against terrorism, currently on the

international agenda. Launching a genuine dialogue

among cultures and civilizations will be helpful in

fostering rapprochement and understanding among

peoples, by combating prejudiced viewpoints and

narrow-minded perceptions. Situations will still be

tense wherever peoples are deprived of their rights, and

denied freedom and dignity.

This is the case in Palestine, where the

Palestinian people are still denied the enjoyment of

their right to exist, despite the universal recognition of

their national rights today. The prevarication, delaying

tactics and systematic repression used by Israel for

decades to defer the settlement of the Palestinian

problem, have now led to an explosive situation that

seriously threatens regional and global peace and

security.

The international community should become

involved in a more decisive manner to put an end to

this spiralling situation, and firmly urge Israel to fully

cooperate for a global, just and lasting solution which

necessarily includes the establishment of an

independent and fully sovereign Palestinian State, with

Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, and the withdrawal

from the Lebanese and Syrian territories remaining

under occupation.

In this same sensitive region, the Iraqi people’s

tragic predicament endures. We must emphasize the

urgent need to help them establish their own

independent institutions, to exercise unhindered control

over their economy and natural resources and to

maintain their unity and territorial integrity. In our

opinion, only the United Nations can legitimately and

effectively accompany the institution-building and

reconstruction of the country, and its role in these

processes is of paramount importance.

In our immediate region, in Western Sahara, the

people of this territory, 28 years after withdrawal of the

former colonial Power, are still waiting for the right to

exercise in freedom, and without constraint, their

inalienable right to self determination in compliance

with international legality. Algeria has consistently lent

its support to the efforts of the Secretary-General and

his personal envoy, as evidenced by its support of the

Settlement Plan and the Huston Agreements, signed

and accepted by the parties to the conflict, the

Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front.

By accepting the peace plan for self-

determination of the people of Western Sahara,

unanimously endorsed by the Security Council last

July, and submitted by the Special Representative of

the Secretary-General, Mr. James Baker, Algeria has

once again shown its availability to fully contribute to

the settlement of this conflict. This settlement must

comply with the right of the people of the Western

Sahara to decide, in sovereignty, on their destiny

through a fair and free referendum of self-

determination, to be organized and monitored by the

United Nations.

The challenges facing the world in the fields of

peace, security and economic and social development

are particularly acute in Africa. This continent has

endeavoured over the last few years, with resolve and

determination, to settle the conflicts affecting several

of its regions, thus generating and encouraging a peace

dynamic.

In order to achieve its peace and developmental

goals, Africa must, above all, rely on the support and

enhancement of African endeavours. No doubt,

however, it also needs increased international

cooperation and support. The strategy of the New

Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) aims

specifically at an optimal mobilization of both African

and international resources, and the harmonization of

these contributions through a partnership based on

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mutual commitments and balanced interests and

responsibilities.

The G-8 countries and European Union member

States, as well as other countries and organizations that

are partners of Africa, have already taken steps to focus

their Africa-related policies and programmes in support

of NEPAD. Such a partnership should be intensified to

help Africa, which is still lagging behind, to increase

the pace of its development, to catch up in achieving

the Millennium Development Goals, particularly that

of reducing poverty to half its present level by the year

2015.

Enhancing international cooperation is also an

urgent task, in order to ensure the bases for sustained

growth of the world economy, and actual integration of

developing countries into the fields of production,

technology and trade. Basically, there is a need to

ensure the necessary conditions so that globalization

will offer genuine opportunities for all. This implies

promoting equitable rules of the game to advance trade,

finance, investments and technology transfer.

In this connection, we are concerned that the

recent World Trade Organization Ministerial

Conference, held in Cancún, did not manage to draw a

framework for negotiations to revitalize the Doha

meeting, which was already well behind schedule. We

are still convinced that the reactivation of these

negotiations and their successful completion, in

conformity with the development agenda, holds to a

large extent the key to the growth prospects of the

world’s economy.

It is therefore of critical importance to overcome

the remaining difficulties on the basis of an approach

that takes into account the interests and concerns of all

parties, as well as the need to restore the multilateral

trading system’s integrity, and effectively implement

the special and differential treatment afforded to

developing countries. Adequate international action is

also required to address growing phenomena that are

becoming more pronounced, such as speculative flows,

money-laundering, financing of terrorism, illicit

payments and bribery, as well as harmful practices in

the field of corporate governance. This is needed to

stimulate productive investment and ensure sustained

long-term growth. It is therefore important to tap the

huge investment opportunities available in the

developing world, in particular, which eventually will

benefit the world economy as a whole.

Significantly increasing official development

assistance and acting with greater resolve to find

solutions to the problem of the external debt burden of

developing countries, as well as improving access to

world markets for the products of the countries of the

South would all go a long way towards enhancing the

investment climate in those countries and towards

increasing their share of world trade, which remains

the ultimate goal for achieving sustained financing for

development. At stake is the establishment of a new

international partnership based on the equitable sharing

of responsibilities and benefits.

To conclude, let me once again put on record our

full confidence in our Organization, whose mission in

favour of world peace and economic and social

development for all peoples, remains more valid than

ever. We shall therefore continue to call on all Member

States without exception to contribute to enhancing the

Organization’s authority and to provide it with the

means necessary to fulfil its responsibilities.