Qatar, 2014

At the outset,

I would like to congratulate His Excellency Mr. Sam

Kutesa on his election as President of the General

Assembly at its sixty-ninth session. We wish him

success in his mission. I would also like to thank His

Excellency Mr. John Ashe for his work during his

presidency. And I thank His Excellency Secretary-

General Ban Ki-moon for his efforts to promote and

operationalize the role of the United Nations.

The start of this year’s session comes at a time

when recent international developments are affecting

the security and safety of all humankind. In that

regard, it is essential that the United Nations live up

to its role in the maintenance of international peace

and security through all the mechanisms and means

provided for in the Charter of the United Nations,

explore every possible way of preventing conflicts and

addressing their root causes, and work to settle them

by peaceful means. We cannot achieve international

peace and security without a dialogue based on the

principle of equality and compliance with international

law, implementation of the resolutions of international

legality and respect for the principles of human rights

and the rights of peoples.

The Middle East went through an extremely

dangerous phase during the recent war on our

Palestinian brothers. There are no guarantees that it

will not recur. Israel continues to persist in its policies

of occupation and to defy the will of the international

community by confiscating land in the West Bank and

building settlements in an effort to perpetuate that

occupation. Humankind was shocked by the tragic

scenes and unprecedented images of destruction during

the latest round of aggression targeting civilians in

Gaza. Babies were killed in their mothers’ arms, almost

half a million Palestinians were displaced and the Gaza

Strip was virtually destroyed when people had hardly

managed to rebuild after the destruction inflicted on

Gaza during the previous war. Under international

law and international humanitarian law, such acts are

defined as crimes against humanity. The arrogance

of power will not prevail over the resistance of the

Palestinian people. I salute their steadfast resistance in

the face of the occupation in Gaza and their insistence

on regaining their legitimate rights. May the souls of

the Palestinian martyrs rest in peace.

Israel must realize that it can achieve security for

its people only through peace, and that the occupation

is bound to end. The damage caused by Israel’s repeated

acts of aggression in the Gaza Strip in recent years,

the unjust blockade imposed on it and the destruction

wreaked on its infrastructure make it incumbent

on the international community to compel Israel to

implement internationally agreed-on resolutions, fulfil

its obligations and hasten to remove every obstacle

to lifting the blockade and launching the process of

reconstructionn. The State of Qatar will spare no effort

to provide assistance for the reconstruction of the Gaza

Strip, and we urge every country to follow suit.

The international community’s response to the

aspirations of the Palestinian people to freedom

and national independence is vital to affirming the

justice of international legality, especially since the

question of Palestine is the last remaining issue on

the decolonization agenda. In that context, temporary

solutions and piecemeal settlements have proved useless

and unacceptable. Israel’s intransigence compels us to

resort to the United Nations as a framework that can

accommodate all parties.

The Security Council should shoulder its moral

and legal responsibilities by upholding the principles

of international legality and human rights and avoiding

the selectivity that has characterized its approach to

this issue in recent times. It should adopt a resolution,

under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,

forcing Israel to end its occupation of the lands it seized

in 1967 and to implement the two-State solution agreed

on by the international community, according to a clear

and time-bound political plan, within the framework of

peace negotiations leading to a permanent settlement of

the Palestinian question through a two-State solution,

in accordance with the Arab Peace Initiative and the

relevant internationally legitimate resolutions. The

world is duty-bound to persuade the Palestinians that

those who killed their children in Gaza will not be

received in diplomatic forums as if they had carried

out a civilized action because they had bombed

Palestinians from the air without staining their hands

with Palestinian blood.

The tragedy of the Syrian people, now in its fourth

year, represents one of the major challenges in the Middle

East. This humanitarian disaster has been exacerbated

and is becoming increasingly dangerous by the lack of

a clear vision for a solution to the crisis, continued acts

of murder and destruction, violations of human rights,

the terrible human suffering and the displacement

of nearly half of the Syrian people. This makes it

incumbent on the international community to strive

to end the bloodshed and the systematic destruction of

Syria by a regime that forces its people to choose

between accepting its presence or burning down their

country.

We have already warned that the continuation of the

regime’s policy of terrorism, genocide and displacement,

as well as the failure to provide support to the Syrian

revolution when it was still a civilian revolution

demanding freedom and dignity, would push many

Syrians to opt for self-defence. We have also warned

the international community from the outset that if no

action were taken about the situation in Syria, we would

reach the point at which we now find ourselves. When

the Syrian people defended themselves with weapons,

we advocated providing them with support before the

regime destroyed their country and before extremist

organizations arose and flourished. No red lines were

drawn to stop the actions of the Syrian regime. The

world remained silent even when Syrian children and

women were killed with chemical weapons and when

its populated neighbourhoods were levelled with barrel

bombs. Eventually, the Syrian people found themselves

stuck between the grip of terrorism of the regime and

that of extremist forces that thrived in the swamp of

violence. The war of genocide waged and the deliberate

displacement carried out by the regime remain major

crimes.

Confronted by this grim reality, the international

community needs to provide all aspects of humanitarian

aid to the Syrian people inside and outside their areas

of refuge. We reiterate our call on the Security Council

to promptly shoulder its legal and humanitarian

responsibilities. It must support the Syrian people

against the two dangers posed by the terrorism and

crimes of genocide of the regime, and by the terrorist

forces that have taken advantage of the prevailing

misery, bitterness and the absence of the State and the

international community. The first danger has begotten

the second.

Many areas of the world suffer from the terrorism

being perpetrated under different pretexts and slogans

that threaten the security and stability of the world and

hamper the achievement of the desired development. No

civilization has been spared terrorism in the modern era.

There is no doubt that the most affected communities

are those in which this evil seed had grown. This

phenomenon is hostile to the diversity and pluralism

that enrich communities. In the case of the affected

Arab and Islamic societies, terrorism affects innocent

people, impoverishes our societies by depriving them

of humanitarian and religious diversity, muzzles the

real demands of the peoples, and offends religion with

its superficial and apostatic interpretations.

Therefore we must all redouble our efforts to fight

this phenomenon whatever its forms, target or source

might be. It has been proved beyond any doubt that

terrorism can be defeated only in its social environment.

If societies are to stand with us in the fight against

terrorism, we need to be fair and not push them to

choose between terrorism and tyranny, or between

terrorism and sectarian discrimination. We cannot win

the war on terror if peoples are not satisfied that it is

their war and not a war to stabilize a regime that is

oppressing them.

The Syrian people have suffered from tyranny and

terrorism. The international community did not heed

the cries for help of the Iraqi people, who have been the

first victims of terrorism in Iraq. But those who fought

terrorism and defeated it found themselves prone

to marginalization and abuse by terrorist sectarian

militias. It is therefore imperative to persuade the Iraqi

people that they will not pay the a thousandfold price,

and that when they defend their homeland they are

merely defending their rights, dignity and freedoms,

which must be guaranteed. This is what the majority

of the Syrian people must be persuaded of after being

soaked in the blood spilled by the Syrian regime for

daring to demand freedom and dignity.

In this context, the international community

needs to stand firmly by brotherly Iraq in confronting

terrorism and ending its ordeal. Preserving its

sovereignty, territorial integrity and the diversity of

its sects can be achieved only by defusing sectarian

conflict and achieving Iraqi reconciliation that lays the

foundations for a society free from sectarian and ethnic

conflicts, with the participation of all political forces,

without exclusion.

In this context, the international community must

also assist fraternal Libya in ending its current ordeal

by making a serious effort to respect the will of the

Libyan people and meet their legitimate aspirations

for security and stability through reconciliation and

the inclusion of all Libyan factions. From this rostrum,

I call on all Libyan political forces to follow the path

of national dialogue and to hammer out a formula for

governance that meets the aspirations of the Libyan

people, who have sacrificed so much for their freedom.

On this occasion, I cannot but hail the nascent

Tunisian experience, which augurs well for our future

and owes its progress to the awareness and unity of the

Tunisians and their insistence on the success of their

experiment, despite continuous attempts by Powers that

do not want pluralism to succeed in our region. Another

successful instance of the peaceful transfer of power

has been seen in Yemen. We were encouraged by the

outcome of the national dialogue under the auspices of

the United Nations and with the support of the Security

Council, which adopted a resolution emphasizing

commitment to the process and condemning those

undermining its implementation.

But it would seem that there are forces who are

joining ranks in an attempt to thwart that experiment.

Some oppose any change at all and would prefer to turn

back the hands of the clock; others prefer sectarian

conflict and sectarian and factional interests over

justice and good governance for Yemen. Experience

has shown that the use of violence and political action

from a factional or sectarian perspective does not lead

to a change towards a better system of governance, but

poses a threat to the political entity itself.

We call on our Yemeni brothers to preserve the

achievements of the young people of Yemen, and

those of national dialogue and wisdom, and not to

abandon what they have accomplished. They must not

allow anyone to drag them onto the path of sectarian

violence. We also call on the United Nations to work

on implementing its decisions on the achievements of

the national dialogue, including rebuilding the army so

that it can defend the legitimate institutions and stop

the phenomenon of armed militias in Yemen. It has

become clear that such forces would lead to civil strife

and derail the process of peaceful transition.

Many countries of the world still suffer from

poverty and face difficulties in promoting their

development at the desired pace. This holds true for the

new post-2015 sustainable development goals, which

constitute a common vision for future generations. I

stress that the State of Qatar will pursue its efforts to

build a partnership with the United Nations in order

to adopt a post-2015 development plan that meets the

aspirations of the peoples of all countries and regional

blocs.

I would also like to note that the State of Qatar

has made progress in its national development plans

and strengthened its regional and global partnerships,

as confirmed by the United Nations 2014 Human

Development Index. The State of Qatar has been

ranked thirty-first globally, and today we continue the

implementation of the comprehensive national strategy

for human development based on the Qatar Vision 2030,

aimed at achieving development in various fields.

The State of Qatar will pursue its active policy

of providing a space for dialogue in areas of conflict

and for mediation between the various parties, as we

believe in solving conflicts by peaceful means and

have established a tradition of peaceful mediation. We

will continue to provide a platform for dialogue among

political currents, cultures and religions.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate the

commitment of the State of Qatar to work with the

United Nations to address common challenges and

achieve the goals we all seek.