Egypt, 2006

Madam President, allow me today to pay a special

tribute to Mr. Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of our

Organization, for the important role he has played over

the past ten years in upholding the lofty principles and

values on which this Organization was founded.

During the same period, Mr. Annan dealt with many

trying international situations with profound wisdom

and clear vision. It is our hope that the candidate

elected for this important international post during this

session will display the same wisdom and vision.

The sixty-first session meets against the backdrop

of a complex international situation and unfortunate

international events that have uncovered many

contradictions in the work of this Organization. Those

contradictions require us to study in depth the extent to

which the United Nations has succeeded in

strengthening international understanding and

consensus when dealing with the threats and challenges

that face humanity. The current complex situation and

recent events make it incumbent upon us to draw on

past experience to strengthen the role of the

Organization in achieving the noble purposes and

principles for which it was founded.

The negotiations preceding the adoption of the

2005 Summit Outcome Document and the subsequent

negotiations on its implementation have made it clear

that the visions of the North and the South with regard

to the future of the United Nations and the nature of its

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role in the current and coming phases have become

more divergent than before. That was manifest in a

number of attitudes that have left visible marks on the

international environment.

There is a widening gap between, on the one

hand, those who pay the larger share of the budget of

the Organization and believe that their contributions

entitle them to a larger say in the conduct of its work,

and on the other hand the developing countries, which

pay their fair share as established by the methodology

and criteria adopted by the General Assembly and

believe that the Organization must remain the

international forum of democracy, equality and good

governance on the international level, as embodied in

the principle of “one State, one vote”.

Some States, with increasing insistence, believe

that the Security Council must hold the fate of the

Organization in its hands, taking precedence over its

other main organs. Those States are robbing the others

of most of their competencies and deal with them in

any way they see fit, without oversight, even if that

leads to the failure of the Council to discharge its

responsibilities to prevent the killing of the innocent or

the perpetration of crimes of genocide and other crimes

against humanity.

This insistence by a small number of States runs

counter to the view of the majority of Member States,

which believe that the General Assembly is the

inclusive democratic forum that brings the Members of

the Organization together. It is the Assembly that

mandated the Council to bear the responsibility for the

maintenance of international peace and security. The

Assembly alone has the right of oversight and review

of the work of all the organs of the Organization.

Indeed, the Assembly has the right to withdraw the

prerogatives of the Security Council, should it fail to

discharge its charter-mandated responsibilities or if the

narrow political interests of one of the parties to a

conflict prevent the Council from fulfilling its task.

This is a time when the international arena has

witnessed a growing tendency to misuse official

development assistance (ODA) by imposing conditions

on the national priorities of developing countries

without any regard to the agreements reached in the

relevant United Nations conferences and summits. At

the same time, the overwhelming majority continues to

believe that development is a human right and that

development assistance, along with the transfer of

technology, is an obligation for developed countries.

Last year was the sixtieth anniversary of the

tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Astonishingly,

some States continue to believe that their might and

dominance are based on their — and their allies’ —

continued possession of nuclear arsenals. These States

believe in the need to exercise strict control and

supervision of other States and to apply restrictions on

the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. At the

same time, the great majority of Member States believe

that their commitment under the Treaty on the

Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) not to

produce nuclear weapons was made on the basis of a

corresponding commitment by the nuclear-weapons

States to eliminate nuclear weapons under international

supervision within a specific time frame and to achieve

the universality of the Treaty. Not only does the

maintenance of the existing nuclear arsenals jeopardize

the credibility of the NPT, it also threatens humanity

with total destruction and annihilation.

Our peoples have a keen interest in the

achievement of a larger measure of democracy, human

rights and political reform. However, we now can see

that some seek to impose these concepts by military

force, based on their assumption that their principles,

values and cultures are superior and stronger and thus

worthy of being imposed on others. At the same time,

the overwhelming majority believe that democracy and

human rights are based on culture-specific values and

standards that emanate from their respective societies.

They simply cannot be imposed from outside.

Notwithstanding the increase in the number of

victims of terrorist operations, there is an increased

tendency to deal with terrorism through military force

alone, while ignoring its root causes. Some have made

it their mission to rid the world of the evils of terrorism

as they themselves define it. They ignore the

international collective work to conclude a

comprehensive convention on terrorism and to

implement effectively the General Assembly Global

Counter-Terrorism Strategy in a manner that strikes a

balance between the respective roles of the General

Assembly and the Security Council.

Last, but not least, the negotiations on the reform

of the Organization have proven that some believe that

the international collective security regime was

established to enable those who posses the military

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might to impose political settlements under

international protection. While the great majority

believes that the lessons of history, most recently in

Lebanon, have proven that military might cannot and

will not impose a political settlement. Such settlements

must be reached through negotiations alone.

The aforementioned are some of the main

elements that set our positions farther apart during the

past year. We must take these elements as a basis for

determining the premise of our work during this

session. We must develop a clear understanding of the

strengths and weaknesses of the performance of our

Organization. Together, we should chart the course

aimed at upholding the values of democracy, justice

and respect for law in international relations. We must

move resolutely towards the consolidation of those

values in the international community, in view of the

fact that they constitute the real, solid foundations of

international peace and security.

With the same constructive spirit that prevailed in

our work last year, together with a balanced mixture of

realism and ambition, and without the imposition of

impractical time frames or the acceptance of temporary

measures, we must proceed towards the achievement of

further reform and the strengthening of the

effectiveness of the United Nations. We must commit

to preserving both the principle of consensus and the

intergovernmental character of the Organization.

Together, we must work to increase the ability of

the collective security regime to deal swiftly with

international problems. We must stand up to the

arrogance of power of some so that we can protect the

rights and future of other countries and peoples. We

must also face resolutely any attempts to impose

temporary solutions through unilateral actions or

military solutions that might result in transient

victories that lack justice and a comprehensive vision.

Such actions only scratch the surface of the problems

without delving into the root causes. They lead to the

exacerbation of problems by fanning the flames of

hatred and rejection. This, in turn, feeds terrorism and

extremism and leads those who despair of the justice of

the international system to rebel against the will of the

international community.

Despite Egypt’s repeated warnings against

following the path of escalation and confrontation, the

huge loss of life and property incurred as a result of the

war between Israel and Lebanon has gone beyond all

limits. Lebanon has suffered the total devastation of its

infrastructure and the indiscriminate killing of

hundreds of innocent civilians, including children, as

the result of actions that contravene the United Nations

Charter and the basic rules of international law and

relevant international humanitarian law. And, despite

the fact that the Israeli war against Lebanon caused

untold devastation, it has proven that military might,

however great, will never be able to impose a political

solution. It has also proven that the solution lies in

ending the occupation and in negotiating a just political

settlement that will eliminate the feelings of enmity

and replace them with relations of cooperation and

peaceful coexistence.

Undoubtedly, Security Council resolution 1701

(2006), after having been amended to take into

consideration the Arab point of view, thanks to the

efforts of the Arab delegation mandated by the League

of Arab States to New York, is a step in the right

direction. However, this step will remain incomplete

and will not enjoy the success required unless it deals

with the core of the problem in the region — namely,

the Arab Israeli conflict.

The Arab-Israeli conflict has squandered the

resources and lives of the people of the Middle East for

many decades. In it, political, historical and religious

dimensions have fermented into a combustible mix that

carries the seeds of a conflagration that could go

beyond the region and reflect negatively on stability

and relations between the various cultures and faiths in

the world. Hence the importance for all of us, citizens

of the region and members of the international

community, to act in concert to reach an immediate,

just and comprehensive solution to this conflict.

In its endeavours to achieve comprehensive peace

between the Arab world and Israel, Egypt precedes

from a realistic vision of the events on the ground. In

this context, Egypt is exerting efforts to improve the

security situation between the Palestinians and the

Israelis through direct engagement with both parties,

with the aim of calming the situation, putting an end to

all acts of violence, killing and destruction and

encouraging confidence-building measures between the

Palestinians and the Israelis aimed at resuming

dialogue and negotiations. At the same time, Egypt

seeks to resume progress on the three tracks of the

settlement of the Arab Israeli conflict. This is the main

objective of the peace process, which has regrettably

been stalled for years. The deterioration in the security

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situation must not make us lose sight of that objective.

Experience has proven time and again that the success

of security measures will remain limited and fragile if

they are not made part of a wider political framework

that would ensure the basic rights of the parties and

encourage them to make the difficult decisions

necessary for the improvement of the security

situation.

The Quartet has drawn up a road map for peace.

It was accepted by the parties and the States of the

region. It was endorsed by resolution 1515 (2003) of

the Security Council. It was hoped that it would

constitute the political framework to which I referred

earlier. However, this did not happen, for reasons that I

will not list here. Yet, the road map remains a

cornerstone for the achievement of peace in the region,

since it establishes the principles of peaceful co-

existence between Israel and Palestine and determines

the general parameters of the final settlement between

Israel, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon — namely, an end

to the occupation that started in 1967, implementation

of the international resolutions on the Arab-Israeli

conflict, and implementation of the Arab peace

initiative that would ensure security, peace and

recognition for Israel by its Arab neighbours in return

for Israel’s ending its occupation of the Arab territories

and working out acceptable solutions for other pending

issues. There is now a need to build upon this

cornerstone in order to create an effective political

framework that would move the parties towards the

objective desired by the international community as a

whole — namely, the establishment of a

comprehensive peace that would put an end to

occupation and strife in this part of the world.

Egypt has closely followed the developments in

the Darfur crisis since its inception. It is one of the

troop- contributing countries to the African Union

observer mission in Darfur. Egypt participated actively

in the Abuja talks and has provided humanitarian

assistance to the people of Darfur.

There is no doubt that the international

community bears a major share of the responsibility for

reaching a swift and just solution to that problem. In

our opinion, efforts must focus on creating conditions

conducive to the success of the Darfur Peace

Agreement as the political framework agreed upon by

the main parties. That will require the launching and

strengthening of the Darfur-Darfur dialogue in order to

create a consensus on the Peace Agreement and to

convince the parties that have not yet signed it to do

so. In addition, there is a need to encourage the

Sudanese Government to carry out its commitments on

the development and reconstruction of the Darfur

region.

If the United Nations is to continue to play the

role entrusted to it, we must display a sense of

collective responsibility based on a strong resolve to

make the Organization an inclusive framework for

common international efforts to deal promptly and

effectively with regional and global issues and

problems. The call to disseminate democratic practices

and good governance among the States of the world

will be heeded only if coupled with the clear

commitment of all States to applying those concepts in

a multilateral framework and at the international level.

It will be valid only if accompanied by a reaffirmation

of the principles of partnership, the sharing of burdens

and responsibilities, equality of rights and duties, and,

above all, participation on an equal footing in defining

options and in decision-making at the international

level.

Let us work together to strengthen the principles

of democracy in an international multilateral setting.

Let us make dialogue and mutual respect the language

of our discourse. Let us give lofty human ideals and the

common good precedence over narrow selfish interests.

Let us cast aside our differences and be real partners.

In conclusion, allow me to convey our sincere

congratulations to you, Madam, on your assumption of

the presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-

first session. We are confident that, as the first Arab

woman to assume that high position, you will meet

with resounding success. In that respect, allow us also

to express our sincere appreciation and gratitude to

your predecessor, Mr. Jan Eliasson, President of the

General Assembly at its sixtieth session, for his skilful

leadership of our work.