Georgia, 1997

I should like to begin by congratulating the

Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Mr. Hennadiy

Udovenko, on his election as President of General

Assembly at its fifty-second session. This is a compelling

acknowledgment of the high international esteem in which

Ukraine is held and of Mr. Udovenko’s personal qualities

and extensive experience. At the same time, I should like

to express gratitude to the President of the General

Assembly at its fifty-first session, Ambassador Razali

Ismail, who made a significant contribution to the

successful guidance of that session.

It is particularly important for us to be making this

statement today from this lofty rostrum. Five years have

passed since Georgia became a full-fledged Member of

the United Nations. I believe that the time has come to

assess the development of Georgian statehood, as well as

the results of our full-fledged participation in and active

cooperation with the United Nations.

In this five-year period our country has travelled

from civil war, chaos, economic collapse and rampant

crimes to ever increasing stability, the establishment of

democratic institutions and tangible economic progress.

The fact that we have been able to emerge with dignity

from the most critical phase in our independent

development is, to a large extent, to the credit of the

United Nations and its specialized agencies, which

provided Georgia not only with moral support but with

specific and timely financial and technical assistance. We

shall always remember that with particular gratitude.

We understand what a responsible task the United

Nations has as it

“strives to articulate an inclusive vision: community

among nations, common humanity among peoples,

the singularity of our only one Earth.” (A/51/950,

para. 1)

The criterion for the formation of such a vision is the

destiny of each people and every State, including Georgia,

whose recent history fully and clearly reflects all the

virtues and flaws of the present world order. Georgia can

thus serve as a model with regard to the need to

implement long-awaited changes and radical reforms

within the United Nations system. It is precisely on this

subject that I wish to share my views.

The global post-confrontational development

following the end of cold war has not, unfortunately, been

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as simple as had been expected. We have stressed on

numerous occasions, including from this rostrum, that the

global confrontation between two systems has given way to

equally dangerous local and intra-State conflicts that carry

within them the potential for enormous destruction, thereby

posing the same global challenge to international security.

One of the manifestations of this dangerous trend is the

aggressive separatism that has plagued my country and

several other newly independent States. We have also

pointed out that the United Nations and other international

organizations should act in a manner that takes account of

these changes. Unfortunately, our recent experience shows

that, as a result of somewhat entrenched attitudes, these

realities are frequently misunderstood.

The main obstacle to the strengthening and

development of our statehood and to the full

implementation of economic reforms continues to be the

lack of a settlement of the conflicts in Abkhazia and the

Tskhinvali region. The situation in Abkhazia is particularly

worrying. About 300,000 refugees and displaced persons

from Abkhazia are still unable to return to their homes.

These people, whom fate has not treated kindly, are already

beginning to lose hope for a peaceful settlement of the

conflict. We are obliged to note that, regrettably, the

conflict in Abkhazia has become a kind of touchstone

exposing the inadequacy of United Nations efforts. We

therefore continue to insist on the need to find a new

approach that can give a new impetus to the dialogue. We

welcome the vigorous steps being taken to strengthen the

role of the United Nations in settling the conflict in

Abkhazia, Georgia.

We have embraced with hope and optimism the new

initiatives put forward by the Secretary-General of the

United Nations. We would like to stress in particular that

we attach importance to the resumption of the Geneva

negotiations between the parties to the conflict, under the

auspices of the United Nations and with the participation of

the Russian Federation as facilitator, the group of Friends

of the Secretary-General on Georgia and the Organization

for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). We are

confident that the Geneva process will not only promote a

settlement of the conflict, but will also reveal the

transformational role that the United Nations can play under

the new conditions. Here I must express deep gratitude to

the President of Ukraine, His Excellency Mr. Leonid

Kuchma, who, from this lofty rostrum expressed support for

the efforts of the United Nations in Abkhazia and

reaffirmed Ukraine’s readiness to participate directly.

The establishment of a United Nations standby force

would be very useful in developing the potential for

United Nations peacekeeping operations to prevent the

escalation of conflicts in a timely manner. Such forces

would be on constant standby. We believe that such a

system must include a technically well-equipped and

appropriately staffed headquarters. It would be responsible

for the evaluation and assessment of emerging conflict

situations. On the basis of such assessments United

Nations rapid-reaction forces, which have yet to be

established, could be quickly sent to zones of conflict. We

are confident that, had such forces existed five years ago,

the tragic development of the conflict in Abkhazia could

have been prevented. As the vicissitudes of the conflict in

Abkhazia, Georgia, have shown, there is still a need for

clearly coordinated joint actions between the United

Nations and regional and international organizations for

the settlement of conflicts. The absence of such a practice

considerably reduces the effectiveness of the

peacekeeping efforts of our community.

Georgia’s experience provides a positive example of

cooperation between the United Nations and the

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

This cooperation includes the joint United Nations-OSCE

office for monitoring human rights in Abkhazia and the

programme for the economic rehabilitation of the

Tskhinvali region, proposed and implemented by the

United Nations Development Program. I also believe that

we should seriously consider the proposal of the acting

Chairman of the OSCE, by which the State chairing that

Organization would automatically join the group of

Friends of the Secretary-General on Georgia, thereby

promoting and increasing cooperation between the United

Nations and the OSCE. We believe that there is a need to

welcome the process of cooperation between the United

Nations and regional international organizations, which

has already begun.

We should also reconsider the important concept of

post-conflict peace-building. We are sometimes prisoners

of stereotyped notions of a phased approach to settling

conflicts, and as a result we sometimes fail to notice how

thin the line is between establishing peace and

peacekeeping itself. In the process of conflict settlement

it is more effective to use elements of post-conflict peace-

building, including them in the strategy of peacekeeping

operations. Elements of post-conflict peace-building such

as social and economic rehabilitation of conflict zones

and the establishment of a basis for their further

development would facilitate confidence-building between

the parties involved and create a favourable social and

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economic environment for the achievement of a final

political settlement. We believe that the United Nations

should remain actively seized of this matter.

The creation of a special fund would allow the United

Nations potential for post-conflict peace-building to be

strengthened. “Development dividends” could provide one

source of revenue for this. On the other hand, the fund

could also consider the economic interests of the parties to

the conflict, and on that basis develop relevant projects,

thereby assisting in conflict prevention.

The uniqueness and indispensability of the United

Nations as a central and multilateral mechanism of

cooperation in the post-confrontational world must first and

foremost be manifested in its leading role in the creation of

a qualitatively new comprehensive system of security,

stability and development. The most important role here

must be played by a global system of economic security,

the formation of which should run parallel with the

development of the process of world integration.

A characteristic feature of today’s world is that

formerly isolated historico-geographic regions are gradually

overcoming their isolation and are cooperating to create a

shared global infrastructure of human activities. Therefore,

regional economic unions should be viewed as a driving

force of the mechanisms for building such an infrastructure.

For example, the Caucasus region clearly demonstrates

the potential of the so-called graded model of global

integration. I refer, in the first place, to subregional

cooperation within the framework of a given region and,

further, in the light of the geo-strategic situation of the

Caucasus, to its role as a link for interregional cooperation,

namely between Europe and Asia.

Such a structure for integration, such a global model

is in keeping with the realities of our day. We believe that

the coordinating role of the United Nations in this process

can be very effective.

Such a vision of the role of the Caucasus region has

already been embodied in the concept of the Euro-Asian

corridor, a kind of Silk Road for the twenty-first century.

This historic conduit for trade, the importance of which is

continuing to grow and gain in recognition, is already

working and proving its effectiveness.

Similar corridors present a unique opportunity for the

establishment of new material and cultural values and for

bringing economies and cultures together. On this basis,

they must — and, unquestionably, will — also play an

important role in the establishment and strengthening of

stability in the region.

Georgia has been called upon to actively promote

the implementation of this concept. Even a superficial

glance at a map shows the strategic importance of

geopolitical and geo-economic dimensions of this central

conduit for world trade. Therefore, we express our

readiness to cooperate with all those who are interested in

making it a reality.

The broad functions of the United Nations as a

universal organization are the basis for the initiatives

spelled out by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his report

“Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for

Reform”. First and foremost, we believe there is a need

to focus on the treaty defining the international legal

profile of today’s world order: the Charter of the United

Nations. Conceived under specific circumstances, it

provided a mechanism that was aimed, for the most part,

at prevention and settlement of conflicts between States.

As a result, the United Nations has often reacted

inadequately to such challenges as the numerous conflicts

occurring within States. The principles that constituted the

basis for traditional peacekeeping operations, in particular

the concept of consent of the parties, are often untenable

in cases of so-called ethnic conflict. This leads us to the

idea that the Charter to a great extent needs to be

rethought and made to conform to current realities.

In this regard, Georgia supports the creation of a

ministerial commission to study the necessity of

fundamental reforms in the Charter and in those legal

documents that define the mandates of the United Nations

specialized agencies. Georgia also supports the proposal

for the appointment of a First Under-Secretary-General

who would be called upon to play a special role in

ensuring the success of programmes and plans of the

various functional sectors of the Secretariat.

Undoubtedly, the crux of the United Nations reforms

is the enlargement of the Security Council and the

improvement of the activities of the General Assembly

and of the other main bodies. Also important is the

question of the optimal reallocation of authority between

the General Assembly and the Security Council. In this

respect, we reaffirm our unwavering position concerning

the inclusion of Germany and Japan among the permanent

members of the Security Council and also concerning the

enlargement of the Council, including adding one seat for

the Eastern European countries.

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We favour growing transparency in the work of the

Security Council. From our point of view, it is important

that concerned States be able to participate in informal

consultations of the Council, at which substantive

discussions take place and decisions are taken.

The international community should also be equipped

with reliable tools of justice to enable it to react not only to

unlawful actions of States but also to those of individuals

who have perpetrated crimes against humanity. In this

connection, we call upon all the Member States to do all

they can to conclude successfully the diplomatic conference

and to adopt a treaty on the establishment of an

international criminal court by 1998.

In closing I would like to recall the initiative of the

Secretary-General to hold a special session of the General

Assembly in the year 2000, as a “millennium Assembly”.

Very little time remains before mankind enters the new

millennium, and we must do everything we can to see to

that the reformed United Nations becomes a genuinely new

United Nations for the world order of the coming century.

I am confident that Georgia, together with other States, will

occupy a worthy place in it, as a democratic and prosperous

country.