Moldova, 1999

Let me join

other delegations in congratulating Mr. Gurirab on his

election as President of the General Assembly at its fifty-

fourth session. His skill and experience will serve us well

as he directs the vital work to be undertaken at this

session. I should also like to take this opportunity to

thank his predecessor, Mr. Didier Opertti, for his

outstanding stewardship of the General Assembly at its

fifty-third session.

The Government of the Republic of Moldova

warmly welcomes the admission of the three new

Members of the United Nations: the Republic of Kiribati,

the Republic of Nauru, and the Kingdom of Tonga.

Since its admission to the United Nations in 1992,

the Republic of Moldova has consistently been an active

supporter of the world Organization. As a small country,

we depend on the United Nations for our security and for

our very existence. We want to see it further strengthened

and the sphere of its activities expanded. We believe that

in this emerging new international order, it is more

necessary than ever that the United Nations be capable of

fulfilling the role entrusted to it by the Charter, as the

guarantor of peace, security and social justice throughout

the world.

It is from that perspective that we evaluate the

United Nations reform process launched by the Secretary-

General; as we see it, reform means the rational

adaptation of United Nations mechanisms to present and

future needs. We owe the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi

Annan, our gratitude and support for his reform proposals.

Especially, we welcome the implementation of the

Secretary-General’s reform proposals aimed at fostering

greater internal coordination, streamlining procedures and

rationalizing the activities of the Organization. In this

context, I would like to underline the positive results thus

far achieved by the United Nations Development Group

and the Executive Committee on Economic and Social

Affairs. The preliminary application of the United Nations

Development Assistance Framework in 18 pilot countries

and more intense cooperation between Bretton Woods

institutions and the United Nations are also producing

promising results.

Integration within the United Nations system is also

moving ahead at the country level. I can already see some

12

encouraging results from the Republic of Moldova’s “One

country, one United Nations” policy. From this perspective,

we believe also that the integration of United Nations

representation at the country level will lead to substantive

improvements and greater coherence in the relationship

between the United Nations system and the host country. I

take this opportunity to inform members that in the near

future a United Nations common house will be officially

inaugurated in the capital of our country, Chisinau.

I would like to mention in this context the substantial

assistance provided by the United Nations to my country

through the United Nations Development Programme

(UNDP) office in the Republic of Moldova. The activities

carried out by the UNDP office contribute significantly to

the ongoing reform process.

We believe that the diversification and deepening of

collaboration among States has enhanced the development

of regional and subregional cooperation as well. In fact, the

Charter itself attaches great significance to regional

organizations. Documents laying the foundations for

collaboration between the United Nations and various

regional organizations have been drawn up, in particular in

recent years. General Assembly resolutions pertaining to

cooperation between the United Nations on the one hand,

and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in

Europe (OSCE), the League of Arab States and the

Organization of African Unity (OAU) on the other, are

relevant from that point of view. Some regional

organizations have acquired new areas of competence,

including in the field of peace and security, and have

become a trustworthy support for the United Nations in

containing and eliminating local conflicts. For the near

future, we may expect that additional regional organizations

and groupings will be interested in setting up a cooperation

framework with the United Nations, similar those that exist

with other regional organizations. The Republic of Moldova

supports that trend.

As a founding member of the Black Sea Economic

Cooperation Organization, and as the country which at the

end of this month will assume the presidency of that

organization, the Republic of Moldova welcomes the recent

decision of the General Committee to include in the agenda

of the fifty-fourth session an item concerning the granting

of observer status in the General Assembly to the Black

Sea Economic Cooperation Organization. To this effect, the

Republic of Moldova would very much appreciate it if

Member States lent their valuable support to the granting of

observer status in the Assembly to that organization.

We are fully aware of the fact that because of its

outstanding role in dealing with world problems, the

United Nations is confronted with a growing number of

new threats to international security and stability. In this

context, peacekeeping operations represent one of the

world Organization’s main instruments with which to stop

conflicts in various parts of the world and to create

favourable conditions for their political settlement. It is

also obvious that in recent years the United Nations has

nearly exhausted its ability to respond to the increasing

number of requests for such operations. Under these

circumstances, we support and encourage the trend

towards involving regional organizations and

arrangements, in cooperation with the United Nations, in

the mitigation of certain conflicts. At the same time, we

consider that peacekeeping operations should as a rule be

undertaken under the auspices of the United Nations and

in conformity with United Nations standards.

Statements made during the general debate have

offered an eloquent perspective on the major challenges

confronting the present-day system of international

relations and on the role that international organizations,

and primarily the United Nations, have to play in order to

meet them. One of the most important issues spoken of in

this context is the maintenance of peace, security and

stability in various regions affected by crisis and internal

conflict. Unfortunately, developments in those regions

compel us to acknowledge the insoluble character of

many such conflicts. These so-called frozen conflicts have

a huge potential for destabilization and destruction. The

Kosovo tragedy has clearly shown how they can

degenerate if we do not succeed in working out timely

long-lasting solutions. The Secretary-General is absolutely

right when he stresses that a tragic irony of many of the

crises that continue to go unnoticed and unchallenged

today is that they could be dealt with by far less perilous

acts of intervention than the one we witnessed recently in

Yugoslavia.

At the same time, one of the main conclusions to be

drawn from conflicts such as those in Kosovo and in

Bosnia is that no single organization or State is capable

of solving conflicts of such complexity and scale on its

own.

The uniqueness of the United Nations is defined

particularly by its capacity to efficiently mobilize the

resources of the international community and to

orchestrate its efforts in order to defuse and solve crisis

and conflict situations. That unique potential has to be

more actively and more efficiently used, particularly in

13

relation to the internal conflicts confronted by some newly

independent States. Since 1992, when the majority of the

ex-Soviet republics became members of the United Nations,

dozens of interventions concerning conflicts in these States,

Moldova among them, have been spoken of in this

Assembly. One of the main conclusions of those statements

was that without more active involvement by the

international community those conflicts will remain

“frozen”.

In this context, it bears mention that the United

Nations, as well as other international bodies and individual

States, have made an important contribution to ending the

violence and military clashes and in bringing the parties

involved to the negotiating table. Another positive result

from the actions of the international community has been

the parties’ acceptance of the idea of resolving their

differences through peaceful means.

For this reason, the Republic of Moldova, like other

countries with similar problems in our own region, has

continued to support more active involvement by the United

Nations and regional organizations in managing the

conflicts which they have faced for many years now. We

think that the time is ripe to give more consideration to the

question of how the root causes of those conflicts should be

identified and dealt with. In this respect the United Nations

can efficiently use its potential only through intensive

cooperation and interaction with the European organizations

and institutions, particularly OSCE. Through enhanced

synergy and avoidance of duplication, and by using and

maintaining consulting mechanisms at various levels and

exchanging information about plans and activities between

itself and those organizations, the United Nations can

improve the situation in countries affected by internal

conflicts.

However, there must be firm decisions about what

action must be taken to ensure the implementation of the

relevant resolutions and decisions adopted of the United

Nations and the OSCE, the main international organizations

involved in settling those conflicts. We believe that the

General Assembly should evaluate the efficiency and

effectiveness of cooperation between the United Nations

and OSCE from this point of view also.

That I refer to the issue of conflicts in some detail is

not incidental. The problem of the eastern region of the

Republic of Moldova has been repeatedly described, from

this rostrum, by representatives of my country. To my

regret, I must inform of the Assembly that there has been

no tangible progress towards a comprehensive settlement.

Throughout the negotiations, we have sought to

accomplish the purpose for which the Assembly was

established: to replace mistrust and violent confrontation

with dialogue and agreement between the parties to the

conflict.

The Government of my country has shown more

than once that it strongly advocates a peaceful resolution,

through negotiations, of the conflict situation in

Transnistria, in accordance with the norms and practice of

international law and in collaboration with international

organizations, primarily OSCE, and with the Russian

Federation and Ukraine as mediators. Although it has

made the spirit of compromise evident, the Government

firmly believes that any proposal for a settlement must

provide for territorial integrity to be maintained and for

control over the territory of the whole country to be

ensured.

Despite a reasonable compromise on the part of the

constitutional authorities, separatist tendencies still persist.

A number of documents — elaborated with the active

participation of OSCE and other mediators and signed by

all parties involved — are being interpreted unilaterally,

and in a manner contrary to their meaning, by the

Transnistrian leaders. Moreover, these leaders are trying

to impose certain concepts that do not exist in law and

territorial practice and are contrary to the principle of

territorial integrity. Here I refer to am referring to the

concept of “common State,” which has very frequently

been imposed in discussions to define relations between

the central and local authorities in certain conflict zones.

We consider this concept dangerous due as it attempts to

distort the notion of statehood and State sovereignty and

provide a legal framework for the ideology of aggressive

separatism. I believe that the United Nations and other

international organizations will also find this concept both

inadequate and counter-productive as a means of

resolving internal conflicts.

In Transnistria, we are striving for a rapid and

definitive solution and a return to stability, and a return

also to respect for human rights, which continue to be

violated in this region. The case of the Ilascu group, and

violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms it

represents are eloquent in this respect.

We consider it imperative for international efforts to

solve the current crisis situations, most of which have

separatism as their main cause, to be strengthened. In this

connection, I would mention that we fully share the views

expressed earlier by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of

14

the Russian Federation concerning aggressive separatism.

Indeed, the international community and, first of all, the

United Nations should decisively suppress any

manifestations of separatism and rigorously and consistently

defend the principles of sovereignty, integrity and the

inviolability of national frontiers. To this end, the complete

eradication of outside encouragement and support for

separatist forces is most certainly necessary.

Another aspect of the Transnistrian problem is

military: this zone is famously overmilitarized, which has

very negatively affected the settlement process. Thousands

of tons of shells and armaments — both accounted for and

unaccounted for, and including equipment limited by the

Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty — are

stationed there. This military presence is in evident

contradiction to the Constitution of the Republic of

Moldova, which declared the State’s neutrality and that

foreign troops are not admissible in our country.

Another premise for accelerating the settlement

process is, would undoubtedly be the immediate, complete,

unconditional and orderly withdrawal of foreign troops, as

stipulated in OSCE summit decisions required by the CFE

Treaty, the keystone of European security and may on no

account be violated.

I hope that, together with our partners and the relevant

international organizations, we can establish, very soon, an

effective mechanism and detailed schedule for the takeover,

destruction or removal of the foreign military arsenal from

Republic of Moldova territory. I express my gratitude for

the political support and, especially, for the financial

assistance provided by many United Nations Member States

for the withdrawal or elimination of those arsenals.

I voice our hope that the proceedings of the General

Assembly at its fifty-fourth session will be conducted in a

spirit of solidarity and with a realistic and constructive

approach to the complex issues confronting the

contemporary world at the end of this millennium. The

delegation of the Republic of Moldova is committed to

contributing, alongside other Member States, to the

fulfilment of the lofty goals of the United Nations.