Slovakia, 2009

It is a great privilege and

honour for me to address the General Assembly, to

which people of the world look with high hopes and

expectations to find effective solutions to the multitude

of challenges and threats that spare no one.

First, let me congratulate you, Sir, on the

assumption of your duties as President of the General

Assembly at the sixty-fourth session and also express

my delegation’s appreciation to your predecessor, His

Excellency Mr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, for his

work during the sixty-third session.

Slovakia fully associates itself with the statement

delivered earlier by the Prime Minister of Sweden on

behalf of the European Union. I would like to

contribute to this debate with some additional remarks.

Slovakia is a keen believer in effective

multilateralism and the central role of the United

Nations in that regard. We therefore greatly welcome

the main theme of our deliberations during this general

debate, with a focus on achieving tangible results on

the three pillars of the work of the United Nations:

peace and security, human rights and development.

We welcome the attention that the Organization

has paid to the issue of climate change, as well as to

increasing food security and eliminating the negative

effects of the financial and economic crisis, especially

in the most vulnerable States and populations. Slovakia

calls for reaching an ambitious, balanced and

comprehensive agreement on climate change in

Copenhagen at the end of 2009 that will replace the

Kyoto Protocol. Also, we need to elaborate an action

plan and strengthen global strategies for food security

in the world. It is essential not to lose sight of the

Millennium Development Goals and to maintain our

efforts to achieve them by the year 2015.

We have in recent years invested considerable

effort in elaborating and implementing our own

concept of official development assistance, through a

number of bilateral and multilateral projects. The

western Balkans, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Africa

have been among our priority geographic areas in this

regard.

Slovakia’s commitment to the issues of economic

and social development prompted us to present our

candidature for membership of the United Nations

Economic and Social Council at the elections to be

held in the General Assembly later this year. We

appreciate the endorsement of our candidature by the

Group of Eastern European and other States and will

do our best to gain the trust and support of all of the

Organization’s Member States. Slovakia is committed

to serving as an active and engaged member of the

Economic and Social Council, and would like to

contribute tangibly to making that important United

Nations organ as relevant and as effective as possible.

The United Nations has achieved remarkable

results in peacekeeping over past decades. We

recognize its continued efforts to adapt peacekeeping

so that it can respond better to current and future

challenges. More emphasis should be put on ensuring

that peacekeepers and other United Nations actors on

the ground are properly equipped and trained,

including in the area of the so-called critical

capabilities. It is our belief that preventive diplomacy

should be used whenever possible in order to avoid

conflicts in the first place.

Slovakia continues to be actively engaged in

numerous peace and security endeavours of the

international community. We are currently participating

in international crisis-management operations under

United Nations command or Security Council mandate

in Afghanistan, Cyprus, Kosovo, Bosnia and

Herzegovina and the Middle East. We are doing our

best to contribute to peacekeeping, peacebuilding,

stabilization and reconstruction efforts in those parts of

the world and will continue to do so in the future.

In addition, Slovakia remains actively engaged in

the area of security sector reform, an issue that we

began promoting within the United Nations during our

non-permanent membership in the Security Council.

Slovakia, as the initiator and chair of the United

Nations Group of Friends of Security Sector Reform,

will continue working to ensure that the United

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Nations system is able to react in an adequate, timely

and systematic manner to the needs of Member States

relating to security sector reform. After a useful

African regional workshop, held in Cape Town as a

joint South African and Slovak project, we have now

teamed up with key partners, namely, Argentina and

Indonesia, in two other important regions, Latin

America and South-East Asia. The Buenos Aires

workshop will be held just a few days from now.

As I have already mentioned, we are glad to see

that significant progress has been achieved in

preventive diplomacy, conflict prevention and

mediation support. This has recently been

demonstrated, for example, in the role played by

United Nations mediation teams in helping to find

peaceful and negotiated solutions to crises in Kenya,

Zimbabwe, Madagascar and elsewhere. Slovakia will

contribute further to that work. We are, in this regard,

very pleased that the first United Nations Regional

Centre for Preventive Diplomacy, located in Central

Asia and led by a Slovak representative, has achieved

good results so far and has fully proved itself as a

meaningful and necessary project. We are convinced

that issues such as conflict prevention cannot be seen

in isolation. They are connected with respect for

human rights, protection of civilians, gender equality,

protection of children in armed conflict and so forth.

As a serving member of the United Nations Human

Rights Council, Slovakia works to promote universal

respect for the protection of human rights and

fundamental freedoms for all, at national and

international levels.

Among the key tools that the United Nations has

at its disposal for protecting those who are most

endangered and vulnerable is the concept of

responsibility to protect, one of the most important

achievements of the 2005 World Summit. We believe

the international community should focus more on the

protection of civilian populations from genocide, war

crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Nor can we forget our obligation, under international

law, to prevent the incitement of those most serious

crimes, which should be referred to the International

Criminal Court, established for the purpose of ending

impunity for perpetrators of such crimes.

Much of the Organization’s ability to deal with

current threats and challenges depends on the existing

institutional framework. The United Nations Security

Council is at the centre of that framework. Slovakia is

a long-term advocate of enlarging the Security Council

in both of its membership categories. The composition

of an enlarged Security Council should better reflect

new global realities. Appropriate attention must also be

paid to the Council’s working methods. We are pleased

that the intergovernmental negotiations have begun and

believe that things will move forward in the interest of

making the Security Council a truly relevant and

efficient body.

The old saying “If you seek peace, prepare for

war” has resulted in an unprecedented arms race,

which in itself has become a source of fear and

insecurity. Slovakia is particularly concerned about the

risk of weapons of mass destruction and their means of

delivery falling into the hands of non-State actors,

especially terrorist groups. In this connection, Slovakia

is ready to work with all partners towards the

successful outcome of the 2010 Review Conference of

the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of

Nuclear Weapons, which should result in an enhanced

international nuclear non-proliferation regime. Our

priority is to outlaw nuclear testing and see the

Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty come into force.

Slovakia also calls for an early start to substantive

negotiations on an arms trade treaty, which is essential

for reducing the unacceptable human cost resulting

from the proliferation of conventional arms.

Slovakia, together with the other members of the

European Union, is deeply concerned about Iran’s

continued defiance despite its international obligations,

including the Security Council’s demands that it

suspend its nuclear activities. We note that Iran has

agreed to continue talks with the P5+1 group of the

five permanent members of the Security Council plus

Germany, and we call on Iran to commit to diplomatic

negotiations in order to restore the trust of the

international community and make real and urgently

needed progress. The deteriorating human rights

situation and the violent suppression of the popular

protests that erupted in Iran after the elections in June

is a cause of much concern to Slovakia. We have also

repeatedly and strongly condemned the nuclear test and

missile launches carried out by the Democratic

People’s Republic of Korea. We call on North Korea to

reverse its position on the Non-Proliferation Treaty and

join the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Let me now turn to some regional issues that

Slovakia pays particular attention to. As a matter of

priority, Slovakia has been closely following

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developments in the western Balkans. We continue to

promote full respect for international law, including the

sovereignty and territorial integrity of States within

their internationally recognized borders. At the same

time, we welcome and support a peaceful and

constructive approach to seeking solutions to disputes.

We believe that the future of the entire region and its

people lies in the European perspective and that there

is no meaningful alternative to that.

Promotion of full respect for international law

and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States

within their internationally recognized borders is also

the principle that guides us in the case of Georgia.

Slovakia was very disappointed when, earlier this year,

the Security Council was unable to agree on extending

the mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission in

Georgia. The termination of the Mission complicates

the already unstable situation in the region, as well as

the security conditions for civilians in the conflict

zone. We firmly support a peaceful and lasting solution

to the conflict in Georgia and hope that the Geneva

talks will yield positive results.

In addition to participating in the United Nations

Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus operation on a long-

term basis, Slovakia has been actively engaged for

more than 20 years in the confidence-building process

between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot

political leaders, and we are committed to continuing

our active engagement. A combination of military and

development aid activities characterizes our long-term

active engagement in Afghanistan. Slovakia, as a

member of the International Security Assistance Force

operation, is helping to establish a secure and stable

environment in Afghanistan.

In conclusion, Slovakia hopes that the last year of

the first decade of this millennium will bring all the

States of the international community closer together in

order to overcome the negative consequences of the

financial and economic crisis, among others.

This represents a basic step towards the possible

settlement of many other conflicts and problems that

the international community is facing. In our view, we

have to intensify our efforts, in this regard, and adopt

appropriate measures on the local, regional and global

levels in the spirit of solidarity and common

responsibility. We strongly believe that the United

Nations and its specialized agencies must be directly

engaged in this process and guide the world for the

welfare of this generation and of those of the future.

I should like once again to reaffirm Slovakia’s

support for your work, which, through pursuing the

priorities of the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth

session, will address the main ills that pain the

international community today.