Algeria, 2002

Let me

at the outset, on behalf of the Algerian delegation,

congratulate you, Sir, on your election as President of

the current session of the General Assembly. This is a

tribute to your personal qualities and to your country,

with which my own has good relations of friendship

and cooperation.

I should like also to congratulate Switzerland on

its admission to full membership in our Organization. I

am sure that that country, so deeply attached to

neutrality in international affairs, will offer a valuable

contribution to our common quest for world peace, at a

time when this peace is so seriously threatened, inter

alia by international terrorism. I therefore welcome the

Swiss delegation to the Assembly and wish it every

success in its work here with us.

Our Assembly will also shortly be admitting to

full membership in the United Nations the new State of

Timor-Leste. We welcome its brand-new independence.

The Timorese people have freely chosen, through the

exercise of their right to self-determination, to be the

masters of their own fate. We congratulate them once

again for having stood firm, and we welcome them and

wish them a future of progress, prosperity and peace.

It has been two years now since the historic

Millennium Declaration was adopted. In offering a

collective response, in a spirit of solidarity, to the

challenges facing the world in the areas of peace,

security and the eradication of poverty, the

international community took a responsible approach to

the situation that, given the subsequent events that

disrupted and shook the world, make that Declaration

seem to have foreshadowed the present.

The tragic events of 11 September 2001, which

we commemorated just a few days ago, highlighted the

need for a collective response to this global threat of

terrorism. For a decade, Algeria has had to face alone

this scourge of the modern age. We are glad that there

is now greater awareness of this phenomenon within

the international community and of the measures that

need to be taken to address it.

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Algeria participated in the efforts to conclude the

conventions to combat terrorism adopted within the

various regional African, Arab and Islamic

organizations of which Algeria is a member. Those

conventions made a significant contribution to

strengthening the international legal framework

essential for any action for effective international

cooperation in combating terrorism.

We believe that it is a matter of urgency to adopt

a comprehensive convention on combating terrorism,

which would provide a normative framework for

bringing together the various cooperation agreements

in the anti-terrorist struggle. We must go beyond our

differences in respect of how we define terrorism in

seeking one acceptable to all, avoiding ambiguities that

we all condemn.

More specifically, we reject any association

between Islam and terrorist activities. We cannot

equate terrorism with the fight by people who are

deprived of their rights an unequal fight that they

are waging with all the resources and weapons

available to them.

Because of the excesses committed by the Israeli

occupiers, the international community has defined the

conditions necessary to bring back a just and lasting

peace in Palestine and in the Middle East. The

conditions include the rejection of violence, the

resumption of negotiations based on the principle of

land for peace, and a cardinal point the

confirmation of the right of the Palestinian people to

establish a State within recognized and secure borders,

and its corollary, two States Palestinian and

Israeli living in peace, side by side.

The Beirut Arab initiative offered the outline for

such a settlement, based on international law and the

principle of land for peace.

That Arab initiative was welcomed by the United

Nations and the co-sponsors of the peace process, and

it breathed new life into a peace process that had been

languishing. Algeria, today as in the past, stands side

by side with the Palestinian people in their exemplary

struggle for freedom and dignity, which can succeed

only when the legitimate national rights of the

Palestinian people are recognized, including its right to

the establishment of an independent State, with Al-

Quds as its capital, and a complete Israeli withdrawal

from all Arab territories occupied since 1967. That is

the only way to bring peace, stability and security back

to the sensitive region of the Middle East.

In that same region, in Iraq, positive

developments have just occurred which give grounds

for hope that the logic of war will finally be replaced

by the logic of peace. In agreeing to the return to its

territory of United Nations inspectors, Iraq has

demonstrated that it is committed to cooperating with

the international community so that there can be

definitive closure on the question of weapons of mass

destruction. That was a courageous decision by the

Iraqi Government, which must logically lead to the

definitive lifting of sanctions, which have hurt the Iraqi

people so badly, and to bringing back peace and

security to that country and to the region as a whole, in

strict respect of the sovereignty and unity of the Iraqi

people and of the territorial integrity of its national

territory.

Close by Algeria, in Western Sahara, 27 years

after the withdrawal of the former colonial Power, the

Sahrawi people are still demanding their inalienable

right to self-determination, pursuant to General

Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) and to the resolutions

that the General Assembly has been adopting and

confirming year after year, since it called in 1966 for

the decolonization of the territory and for self-

determination for the people through a referendum.

The international community cannot remain

indifferent to the fate of that people, nor can it accept

that the full implementation of the Settlement Plan and

of the Huston agreements be postponed time and again.

Algeria, a neighbour to the two brotherly peoples

of Morocco and Western Sahara, will continue to do its

utmost in the service of international peace and of

stability and unity in the subregion. Algeria has fully

supported the efforts made by the Secretary-General

and his Personal Envoy, and we have made a

significant contribution to the settlement of the

conflict. The United Nations and the Security

Council in particular is dealing with the issue of

Western Sahara. Algeria hopes that its relationships

with its neighbours will not be jeopardized by this

dispute and that the Arab Maghreb Union will be able

to resume its activities and develop fruitful cooperation

with all the countries in the region.

This session is taking place at a time when

globalization is accelerating and an information and

communication technologies revolution is under way.

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Questions continue to arise about the benefits and

challenges of this process and the risks of

marginalization and exclusion that it poses for the

developing countries, particularly in Africa. This

session is of particular significance because it is taking

place in the immediate aftermath of the International

Conference on Financing for Development and the

World Summit on Sustainable Development, two

events that could prove decisive for the future of

international cooperation for sustainable, balanced and

equitable development.

While the process that was launched at Monterrey

identified how financing is to be mobilized and

financial and technical cooperation for development

strengthened, the Johannesburg Summit focused on the

priority areas of combating poverty and ensuring

sustainable development and international cooperation.

The right to development must be the main focus

of our concern and efforts to strengthen international

cooperation through various innovative partnerships

between the North and the South, based on the sharing

of responsibilities and benefits. In this connection, I

would like to mention the signing this year of the

Association Agreement between Algeria and the

European Union. That Agreement will provide the

foundation for launching a genuine, mutually beneficial

partnership.

Problems relating to internationalizing foreign

direct investment flows as much as possible,

significantly increasing official development

assistance, managing the debt burden, opening markets

to the products of the South and restructuring the

international financial institutions to allow for greater

participation by developing countries clearly remain

our major concerns, and we need to find solutions to

them quickly.

Given the serious crises that are convulsing the

world, the establishment of a more equitable

international economic and trade order is becoming

increasingly important, and will require greater

political will on the part of the international

community.

The outcome of the most recent World Trade

Organization meeting at Doha provided us with an

opportunity to set up a more open and transparent

multilateral trading system to enable developing

countries to increase their share of international trade.

I would also like to refer to the bilateral and

multilateral initiatives that have been undertaken to

assist developing countries, in particular the least

developed among them. I hope that such initiatives will

be followed up with other specific steps that can give

real meaning to international solidarity and to sustained

efforts aimed at building a more humanistic world, free

from the seeds of instability and violence.

The world is changing very quickly, resulting in

enormous uncertainty about the future of the human

race. We note the tendency, in the light of such

dangers, to move towards international solidarity, not

only in the area of combating terrorism, but also in

fighting poverty and preserving the environment. The

importance of the role played by the United Nations in

finding solutions to the problems facing all of our

peoples is becoming increasingly clear. In a world at

risk, this Organization is, indeed, irreplaceable,

because it symbolizes our common commitment to

fight for the survival of humankind.

The achievements of the United Nations are

impressive in the areas of promoting peace and

security, economic cooperation, social progress,

humanitarian activities and the development of

international law. The fact that such achievements have

been made despite difficulties and inadequate resources

is an indication of what the system would be capable of

were it fully supported by all Member States.

Efforts to streamline United Nations activities,

improve system-wide coordination and ensure

coherence in its actions augur well for the

enhancement, greater credibility and effectiveness of

the Organization.

I should like to pay tribute to the leadership of the

Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, in this

undertaking, which will require a greater commitment

on the part of States as well as the provision of more

resources.

Strengthening the credibility and effectiveness of

the United Nations will also require structural reform

so as to enable it to better reflect the new face of

international society and deal with all of the challenges

facing humankind.

In this new millennium, the world will not be able

to manage without the United Nations. An

Organization that is in tune with the requirements of

change in the world today is an indispensable tool in

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helping us to build peace and comprehensive

sustainable development.