Turkmenistan, 2009

On behalf of the people and the Government

of Turkmenistan, I heartily welcome and congratulate

you, Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki, on the opening of the

sixty-fourth session of the General Assembly and on

your election as President of the Assembly and express

my confidence that, under your leadership, this body

will work successfully and fruitfully. I should also like

to thank Mr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of

the General Assembly at its sixty-third session, for his

skilful and effective work in that post.

The current state of global realities and the nature

of and trends in today’s political, economic and social

processes objectively require closer and more

coordinated interaction between States and major

international organizations if we are to accomplish our

common main goals: achieving world peace and

security, creating conditions for further development

and progress, and protecting the legal and moral

foundations of today’s world order.

The level of effectiveness of such interaction,

striking a reasonable balance between national interests

and the interests of the entire international community,

will greatly determine how successfully we resolve

equally important global problems with regard to the

ecology, energy, food, issues of fair distribution of

water resources, effectiveness in fighting poverty and

infectious diseases, countering the drug threat and

many other challenges.

It is impossible to talk about achieving these

goals without acknowledging and confirming the

critical role of the United Nations. For more than 60

years the Organization has been the main guarantor in

maintaining and supporting universal peace, security

and development. During that time, our Organization

has won great credibility in the world, accumulating

unique experience in resolving difficult international

problems and forging a firm legal foundation for

cooperation between States.

The United Nations was and remains the

underpinning of today’s world order, a pole of

attraction of the hopes and aspirations of all mankind.

In the present conditions it is the United Nations that

must become a pillar in the constructive activity of

States in building a just and harmonized system of

international relations.

It is from this angle that Turkmenistan considers

issues of United Nations reform. We realize that on a

number of aspects our Organization needs

improvement and greater effectiveness to meet today’s

needs. That is a normal and logical process in line with

the logic of contemporary dynamic world development.

Therefore we are for a rational reform of the United

Nations. We will achieve that only by further

strengthening it and steadily consolidating its position

in the international system, expanding its role and

functions as a guarantor of global peace, stability and

development.

We are confident that United Nations reform must

be sensible, targeted and related to the real needs of the

international community. Turkmenistan supports efforts

of Member States and of the Secretary-General aimed

at making the Organization’s work more dynamic,

more effective, more open and more democratic. In this

context, Turkmenistan shares the view on the need to

further improve the structure of the Security Council,

creating closer and effective interaction between the

Council and the General Assembly.

The main goal of our foreign policy remains the

same: comprehensive assistance to the world

community in its efforts to support and strengthen a

global security system, to warn of and neutralize

threats of conflict and to provide conditions for stable

and sustainable development of States and peoples and

for broad and constructive international cooperation.

In this regard, we believe that the permanent

neutrality of Turkmenistan and the related

consequences of its legal status give the community of

nations good practical opportunities to positively

impact the course and nature of processes under way in

Central Asia and the region of the Caspian basin. That

means creating here permanently functioning

mechanisms of international contacts for discussing

33 09-52179

various aspects of regional problems and working out

mutually acceptable and consensual decisions. Based

on available experience and on political and diplomatic

peacemaking under United Nations auspices,

Turkmenistan states that it is ready to provide the

world community with all the necessary political and

logistical conditions for that activity.

In this context we consider exceptionally

important and promising the decision of the United

Nations in 2007 on opening the United Nations

Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central

Asia, with its headquarters in Ashgabat. The Centre

now works actively on monitoring and analysing

regional problems. It participates in various measures

concerning most important development issues in

Central Asia, including at the level of heads of State,

and helps to craft approaches for resolving those

issues. Turkmenistan welcomes the involvement of

various States, international organizations, financial

and economic institutions and experts in United

Nations efforts to draw up constructive models of

development for regional processes.

In formulating our approaches to the problems of

universal security, our view is that the concept is

integral and indivisible, both geopolitically and from

the standpoint of specific aspects. We are certain that

security in one country cannot be guaranteed when

security is lacking in the region, on the continent or in

the world. Similarly, political or military security

cannot be long term and fully fledged without

guaranteeing economic, energy and food security,

without preventing and mitigating the risks and threats

of a man-made ecological problem, or without

effectively combating international terrorism,

organized crime, proliferation of weapons of mass

destruction or other global challenges.

From this point of view, one of the most urgent

components of global security is energy security. First

and foremost, that is because the current system of

international energy has become a vulnerable link in

the world economy. That vulnerability is due to a

number of reasons: political instability in some parts of

the planet, a lack of commonly recognized international

legal mechanisms, incomplete infrastructure and

pipeline routes that are geographically limited. All of

that affects the common atmosphere in the world

energy supply market. There is an objective need to

change this situation, to overcome inertia of

stereotypes and to reach a new level of thinking that

corresponds to modern demands.

Today, we talk not about adopting certain

preventive measures or about local agreements on

some aspects of fuel transport, but about the creation of

principally new, universal models of relations in the

realm of world energy, models that are based on a

multilateral balance of interests, the coinciding of

opinions and concepts on the global architecture of

energy security and an awareness of the long-term

benefits and advantages of cooperation.

It seems logical to begin international discussion

of the problem of energy supplies as a first step in this

direction. The discussion needs to find lines of

coincidence of interests, to determine initial positions,

to generate common language to carry on a dialogue —

in other words, to create the basis for substantial and

effective cooperation.

Therefore, during the previous session of the

General Assembly, Turkmenistan announced an

initiative to develop universal mechanisms that could

guarantee reliable and secure functioning of the

international energy supply infrastructure and provide

for access to it and its effective use. A first step in that

direction was resolution 63/210, entitled “Reliable and

stable transit of energy and its role in ensuring

sustainable development and international cooperation”,

which was adopted by consensus on 19 December 2008

on Turkmenistan’s initiative. I would like to take this

opportunity to express my gratitude to all States for

their support for our initiative and for their responsible

and constructive position on this issue.

Mrs. Aitimova (Kazakhstan), Vice-President, took

the Chair.

In line with the letter and the spirit of the

resolution, Turkmenistan proposed the convening, with

the support of the United Nations, of a high-level

international conference on the theme “Reliable and

stable transit of energy and its role in securing stable

development and international cooperation”. That

conference took place in Ashgabat in April 2009, and

one of its outcomes was the proposal to request the

United Nations to establish a group of experts to make

recommendations on a possible international legal

document on the subject that takes into account

proposals by interested countries and international

organizations. Turkmenistan is prepared to fully

support the setting up of such a group in the framework

09-52179 34

of the United Nations. We call upon all interested

States to provide proposals for its programme of work.

We believe that the establishment of such a group

could be the first step in the process of drafting a

comprehensive United Nations document aimed at

securing the effective functioning of the international

energy supply system.

Support for the process of disarmament, reducing

weapons arsenals — including, first and foremost,

weapons of mass destruction — and preventing

proliferation continue to be among the most important

issues on the international agenda. We believe that in

the current system of international relations there

should be no room for either the legacy of the cold war

or for the recurrence of bloc confrontation, under

which the quantity and quality of armaments were

almost the sole criteria for establishing the influence

and authority of States. We are convinced that the

fewer weapons there are in the world, the more stable

and calm will be its development and the more trust

and understanding there will be among countries and

peoples.

As the Assembly is aware, the Treaty on a

Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia was signed

in 2006 in the city of Semipalatinsk. All countries of

the region have now become parties to the Treaty. This

joint initiative has proved to be consonant with the

aspirations of the majority of the world’s countries. It

has been highly praised by the international community

and endorsed by the General Assembly. In that regard,

we believe that it would be timely to hold an

international conference, during the first half of next

year, on the subject of disarmament in the Central

Asian region and the Caspian Basin. Our country is

prepared to host such an event. We would also

welcome constructive proposals from the international

community, including from individual States, on how

to help global disarmament processes and on how to

effectively address issues pertaining to our

participation in the implementation of such proposals.

One of the most serious challenges in today’s

world is how to effectively combat such phenomena as

international terrorism, illegal drug trafficking and

cross-border organized crime. For a variety of reasons,

those problems are of particular importance for our

region. We are convinced that only through joint efforts

by States working in close cooperation with

international organizations will we be able to

successfully face those threats. Turkmenistan believes

that the United Nations has a special role to play in that

regard. We believe that it is both necessary and timely

to reinvigorate the participation of the United Nations

and its agencies in developing and coordinating

effective models for international cooperation aimed at

neutralizing those threats and putting in place

mechanisms for preventive diplomacy and the

establishment of conditions for the post-conflict

reconstruction of economic and social infrastructure.

In that connection, we must underscore the

special importance that Turkmenistan attaches to the

reconstruction of Afghanistan and to the establishment

of lasting peace on Afghan soil. Our country provides

assistance to Afghanistan for economic, social and

humanitarian projects. That work will continue. We

want to see Afghanistan as a peaceful and prosperous

country that is a good neighbour and partner for all

States in the region.

At the same time, we believe that the United

Nations can and should play an important role in

resolving the issue of Afghanistan. We are convinced

that, with its enormous peacemaking experience and

great moral authority, the United Nations is capable of

proposing new formats and models in the context of

political and diplomatic efforts to resolve

Afghanistan’s problems and establish peace and

harmony in that country. That work could today be

done more energetically and efficiently, given the

potential of the United Nations Regional Centre for

Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia. We support

increased focused involvement by the Regional Centre

in the international community’s efforts to resolve the

situation in Afghanistan.

The international community’s awareness of

long-term development objectives and its readiness to

work jointly to achieve them are today prerequisites for

the stability of the entire system of international

relations. The serious effects of the global financial and

economic crisis have once again clearly demonstrated

the need to join efforts in developing an international

security architecture and establishing the conditions for

equal and fair relations between States and peoples on

the basis of recognized international legal norms and

the timeless ideals of the United Nations.

Turkmenistan believes that responsibility,

morality and humanism will be the criteria by which

present and future generations will assess our work. As

a State and as a member of the world community we

35 09-52179

will further contribute to strengthening lofty principles

in international affairs while consistently implementing

our philosophy of Turkmen neutrality, a fundamental

part of which includes our strategic cooperation with

the United Nations.