Luxembourg, 2005

Just a few days

ago, in this same Hall, the follow-up High-level

Meeting was held on the Millennium, bringing together

an unprecedented number of high political leaders from

all over the world. After a process of discussion and

negotiation, both lengthy and thorough, we adopted

what should serve as our road map for the period to

come. The final document should not only inspire but

also give specific direction to, the actions of the

international community in the United Nations.

While not all our expectations or ambitions were

realized in that document and considerable gaps cry

out to be filled — I am thinking particularly of the

crucial areas of disarmament and non-proliferation —

we must, nevertheless, welcome the fact that around

the central pillars of the United Nations, namely,

development, peace and human rights, broad agreement

has crystallized and a new international agenda has in

fact emerged.

It is particularly appropriate and propitious that

the current regular session of the General Assembly

has opened immediately following on the important

High-level Meeting. While we may feel that the

foundation was laid during that important event, what

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we have to do now is to complete what has been

undertaken, consolidate the sections of walls that have

been erected and build those parts that have only been

sketched out — and here I am thinking particularly of

the Human Rights Council — and provide our project

with a sound roof.

Renewal of multilateralism in the context of the

special conditions at the beginning of this century and

the reform of the United Nations must be conducted

with determination, driven by a real sense of urgency

in the light of the significance of the task that awaits us

and the crucial matters at stake for billions of men and

women.

Knowing as I do, Sir, your personal commitment,

your dynamism and your numerous qualities, I am

convinced that you will direct the work of the sixtieth

regular session of the General Assembly in such a way

so as to ensure that we can, all together, carry out the

urgent mandate entrusted to us by the High-level

Meeting and, more particularly, by our peoples, who

have placed their hopes on a revamped and

strengthened United Nations system. It is in this spirit

that my country is prepared to subscribe with

conviction to the accountability pact proposed by our

Secretary-General, whom I would, once again, like to

congratulate for what he has been doing at the head of

our Organization.

I would note with satisfaction your intention, Sir,

to present a detailed and operational workplan in order

to organize our work as effectively as possible so that

we can complete the tasks awaiting us according to a

fixed timetable. We have to provide concrete evidence

that our Assembly will not go back to business as usual

once the spotlights have been switched off.

For all those — and I am one of them — who

believe that our Assembly, a veritable parliament of the

nations of the world, has a paramount role to play in

the emergence of a strong political consensus at the

world level, the quick adoption of specific operational

decisions should deal a sound rebuff to all those

Cassandras, all those cynics and all those who uphold

the status quo that opposes change.

In his opening statement at the sixtieth regular

session of the General Assembly, our Secretary-

General clearly defined the mission that awaits us in

the coming months. Among the subjects that claim our

attention, I would focus on the following: human

rights, in order to strengthen the impact of this

essential dimension in all the activities of the United

Nations, particularly through the immediate creation of

a Human Rights Council on the basis of the positive

groundwork laid in the preparatory work of the High-

level Meeting; the establishment of the Peacebuilding

Commission, an innovative body; the reform of the

main bodies of our Organization, including the urgent

need to enlarge the Security Council in both categories

of membership in order to make the Council more

representative of the realities at the beginning of the

twenty-first century and to make it more transparent

and more effective; giving concrete form to the idea of

“the responsibility to protect”, whose confirmation in

the final document is one of the main breakthroughs of

the recent High-level Meeting; and finally, the reform

of the administrative and financial management of the

United Nations in order to consolidate the effectiveness

and integrity of the Organization.

Let me also devote a few minutes to the question

of development. Development remains the main

political and moral issue of our time. It must be noted

that progress towards the Millennium Development

Goals has been uneven and some backward movement

must be acknowledged, particularly in sub-Saharan

Africa. The recently published Human Development

Report notes that

“In the midst of an increasingly prosperous

global economy, 10.7 million children every year

do not live to see their fifth birthday, and more

than 1 billion people survive in abject poverty on

less than $1 per day. The HIV/AIDS pandemic

has inflicted the single greatest reversal in human

development. In 2003, the pandemic claimed 3

million lives and left another five million people

infected.” (Human Development Report 2005, p. 1)

In view of these alarming facts, setting up and

creating a genuine partnership for development, based

on the groundwork of the Monterrey Conference and

on the basis of shared responsibility borne by both the

donor countries and the recipient countries, remains a

matter of priority. The countries of the South must take

their own development in hand by defining detailed

national strategies that are effective and directed

towards good governance and combating corruption.

The countries of the North must fulfil their

commitments in matters of trade, debt reduction and

enhancing the quality of aid and good practices.

Particular emphasis should be laid on increasing

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financial flows for development. In this connection,

when Luxembourg occupied the presidency of the

European Union during the first half of this year, the

member States of the European Union took the historic

decision to commit themselves on a precise timetable

to make a considerable increase of their official

development aid (ODA) in order to achieve the target

of 0.7 per cent of their gross national products by 2015

at the latest. Four of the five countries, including my

own, that have achieved or gone beyond 0.7 per

cent — a target reconfirmed by the High-level

Meeting — are member States of the European Union.

The Government of Luxembourg has confirmed its

intention to increase its ODA contribution in the years

to come to one per cent of its gross national income.

Unfortunately, too often the fruits of development

are erased by natural or man-made disasters. In the

Sudan, in the Great Lakes region and elsewhere, this

truth is demonstrated daily. There can be no

development without security. There can be no security

without development.

That is why I particularly welcome the agreement

reached during the summit on the establishment of a

Peacebuilding Commission. That should make it

possible for us to contemplate the tremendous

problems of transition confronting the countries

emerging from conflict from an overall viewpoint,

bringing together the dimensions of crisis management,

humanitarian aid, reconstruction of State structures and

local and legal structures and providing essential

public goods and services, while at the same time re-

launching the process of economic and social

development.

On the basis of the mandate given by the summit,

Luxembourg actively supports the reform of the

Central Emergency Revolving Fund, which should take

shape in coming months so that this renovated Fund

can become fully operational by the beginning of 2006.

My country has already announced, just a few days ago

here in New York, that it would be making a

contribution of $4 million to the capital of this Fund,

and other States have also confirmed large

contributions.

If development is, according to the well-known

formula, the new name of peace, we cannot fail,

nevertheless, to note that numerous international

conflicts and intra-State conflicts and hotbeds of

tension continue to dot the face of the world.

Peace and stability in the Middle East continue to

be at the forefront of our concerns.

The current President of the Council of the

European Union, my friend Jack Straw, recalled two

days ago from this rostrum the spirit in which the

negotiations on the nuclear issue were conducted with

Iran in recent months. Cooperation and respect for

international norms and treaties, rather than

discrimination or a desire to create dependency, were

what motivated us in this case. In the Paris Agreement

Iran subscribed to a total suspension of all activities

connected with enrichment and all reprocessing

activities. It is that commitment that made it possible

to develop political and economic cooperation with the

European Union. It is that commitment — which, I

hardly need to recall, has been ratified by the

International Atomic Energy Agency — that I today

call upon Iran to respect.

In this context, I should also like to welcome the

agreement that was reached just today with the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to abandon all

nuclear programmes and to rejoin the Nuclear Non-

Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This is excellent news.

On 22 June 2005, more than 80 countries and

organizations met in Brussels at the International

Conference on Iraq, sponsored jointly by the European

Union and the United States, with the presence of our

Secretary-General, and expressed their support for the

Iraqi Transitional Government and its political,

economic and security priorities. That important

Conference made it possible, in particular, for the

States members of the European Union to reaffirm

their unanimous and united support for a secure, stable,

unified, prosperous, democratic Iraq, respectful of

human rights, which will benefit fully from the

exercise of its sovereignty, cooperate constructively

with its neighbours and with the international

community, and end violence in that country. And it is

our Organization that, more than ever, must be a

driving force, play a leading role, in that context.

The Near East has only rarely been the scene of

positive developments. This is why I should like

particularly and expressly to welcome the political

courage of the leaders of the two sides regarding the

successful withdrawal from Gaza and certain parts of

the north of the West Bank. Now we should take

advantage of that positive dynamic to launch a genuine

peace prospect based on the road map, which continues

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to be the essential framework in this matter. The

conditions to promote the emergence of a climate of

peace were recalled by the European Council on 16 and

17 June 2005. In particular, the fact that the Palestinian

Authority is taking control of Gaza now provides it

with an opportunity to demonstrate its institutional and

administrative maturity, particularly as regards

maintaining law and order and combating terrorism.

The cessation of all acts of violence by the parties is

also an essential requirement.

Regarding the crucial question of Israeli

colonization activities in the occupied territories, the

European Council noted that “the policy of

colonization is an obstacle to peace and threatens

making virtually impossible any solution based on the

coexistence of two States”. In the same context, the

European Council expressed concern at the

continuation of the building of the separation barrier in

the occupied Palestinian territory, including East

Jerusalem and its surrounding areas, which contradicts

the pertinent provisions of international law. At the

same time, of course, the Council recognized the right

of Israel to protect its citizens against attacks.

Let us assume that the next meeting of the

Quartet, which will be held in New York tomorrow,

will find political formulas that will make it possible to

continue the positive dynamic of disengagement from

Gaza and will clear the way for a just and lasting peace

in this divided part of our world.

As very often happens, patches of clouds and

glimmers of hope are mingled when we analyse the

international situation, but one thing remains constant,

and that is the central role of the United Nations in the

search for international peace and security. Sixty years

after the signing of the San Francisco Charter, we have

all met together here to confirm our contract of

confidence with this Organization, the United Nations,

which is our common heritage — a United Nations

renovated and reformed, synchronized with the threats

and challenges of our times and able to respond to the

expectations of the peoples of the world. As a

signatory to the Charter in 1945, Luxembourg, as far as

it is concerned, is ready to renew this pledge of

confidence with enthusiasm, confidence and

determination.