Algeria, 2025

I now give the floor to His Excellency Ahmed Attaf, Minister of State, Minister for Foreign Affairs, National Community Abroad, and African Affairs of Algeria. In the name of God, most compassionate, most merciful. Your Excellency, Mr. President, our United Nations organization celebrates its 80th year, and Algeria, together with the UN, celebrates the seventh decade of enlisting the issue of Algerian liberation on the program of this assembly. We celebrate these two memories in a global reality that is extremely turbulent and intricate. It is an international reality where conflicts have accumulated while settlements are absent, a reality where technological revolutions have proliferated while the development gap has expanded between the North and the South, a reality where instruments and treaties and commitments are abundant while implementation and commitment to their letter and spirit are scarce. In this complex situation, our organization is incapable and voiceless and marginalized. Its enshrined principles are violated and its adopted resolutions are not implemented. Multilateralism that has been established by the United Nations is being manipulated by unilateral action and self-serving conflicts. The responsibility is entirely upon us, the member states, to restore respect for international law and to restore effectiveness to multilateralism. And we are similarly responsible for empowering the United Nations to restore its status as the beating heart of the international system based on the rule of law. The memory of establishing our United Nations must lead us to reflect on the most important issue on its agenda, which is the question of Palestine. The age of this question of Palestine is as old as the United Nations organization, and the legal essence of this issue takes root in the principles of the UN Charter. And the history of this issue is preserved in more than 1,000 resolutions who have recorded its essence and its legitimacy through more than 900 resolutions adopted by the General Assembly and close to 100 resolutions adopted by the Security Council. The question of Palestine faces the greatest threat ever today, which is the threat of erasure through annexation and displacement, as well as through suffocating the legitimate institutions that represent the Palestinian question, and that may also eliminate the two-state solution that has been the consensus on the issue. The threat is not limited to Palestine, after the Israeli occupation is now loud and proud in its intention to revive what it calls Greater Israel. This situation makes it incumbent on the international community as a whole to uphold the responsibilities. We are responsible to take action so that the seal of our eighth decade be the seal of Palestinian pain, catastrophes, and tragedies. It is the responsibility to work in order to prevent Palestinian neighbors, in particular Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, the horrors of what Greater Israel promises. It is the responsibility to seek to preserve the two-state solution and to build a Palestinian state that is sovereign and independent on the borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital, as a just and lasting settlement for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We appreciate the increasing recognition of the state of Palestine, and we also reiterate the call launched by our president, Abdelmajid Tabun, to empower the state of Palestine with the full-fledged membership in the United Nations. The entire world must realize that the establishment of the state of Palestine is not a choice but a necessity, and it's not a favor but a right, an integral right of the Palestinian people. It's not a hope but a necessary condition that is indispensable and that cannot be evaded in order to restore security and stability in the Middle East as a whole. Accordingly, Algeria follows with great concern the ongoing negotiations under the auspices of the United States of America in order to end the tragedy in Gaza. Algeria encourages these efforts and hopes they will lead to an end to the Nakba, the catastrophe in Gaza, as a step on the road to a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The passage of time, no matter how long, cannot defeat the will of a people or the essence of their legitimate causes. Sixty-two years have passed since the General Assembly has added the Western Sahara to the list of territories whose people are claiming an end to colonization, and fifty years since the Security Council has adopted the first resolution on the Western Sahara, and thirty-four years since the deployment of the UN mission for the referendum in the Western Sahara, the Minorsul. Time may prolong the accomplishment of justice, but it does not cancel justice or the legitimacy of a cause. This August Forum bears witness to this through supporting the people of the Western Sahara. The Western Sahara remains an issue of decolonization. The Sahrawi people remain deserving and entitled to their inalienable right of self-determination. The imposed reality in the Sahrawi land remains an occupation as per international law and the firm doctrine of the United Nations. The solution to this issue, in our opinion, must be based on five elements. One, that the solution take place under the permanent auspices of the United Nations. Second, that the solution be based on direct negotiations between the parties, the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front. Third, that the solution be a result of the formulation of the parties and not imposed by any single party or any other party. Fourth, that this solution be aligned with UN principles on decolonization and on achieving justice for people under colonization. And fifth and finally, that the solution leads to empowering the Sahrawi people of exercising their right to self-determination as per UN resolutions. Also in the direct neighborhood of my country, the Libyan crisis deepens and complicates further day by day. While the international community is losing interest in Libya and while any practical prospects for a peaceful settlement is absent. Fourteen years after the start of the crisis, this sisterly nation remains trapped in divisions that are fueled and invested by foreign interventions as per plots that do not desire the best for Libya or desire Libya's stability or security. If the matter was left to the Libyans alone, they would have reached an end to their divisions by now and would have charted a path forward that ends the crisis a long time ago. It is high time to end the foreign interventions in Libya in order for the resilient Libyan people to heal and reunite. Only then we would have paved the road to a consensus leading to a settlement and elections by which the Libyans would choose their representatives, representatives who are loyal to the Libyan nation and the Libyan people. As for the Sahel region, Algeria reiterates its full commitment to the security and stability of our neighbors and to building the best and strongest relations and most mutually beneficial with our sisters and neighbors in the region. I note here that for the second year in a row, a member of the coup regime dares from Mali through this rostrum to attack Algeria. It is the height of rudeness and vulgarity by which this failed poet has spoken and this coup plotter. It is only the illusion of a soldier and lowly conduct that does not deserve anything but condescendence and it only inspires disgust. And allow me to repeat this last statement in French. The depth of perfidy, of vulgarity and coarseness reached by this false poet but genuine coup plotter are nothing more than brutish verbiage. His gutter talk deserves only scorn and inspires only disgust. I repeat, I repeat, once again, the depth of perfidy, of vulgarity and coarseness reached by this false poet but genuine coup plotter are nothing more than brutish verbiage. His gutter talk deserves only scorn and inspires only disgust. Instead of excelling in blaming others and distracting from one's own failures, we would have hoped that that coarse soldier and his likes had excelled at other disciplines that are more noble and more beneficial for Mali, such as restoring security and stability in their country or the skill of improving the living standards of the people in Mali. And finally, the skill of empowering Mali with a governance that is befitting to its legacy and great history, a governance of competence and integrity and that is loyal. The Republic of Mali deserves better than those coup plotters and conspirators. Algeria fully understands that this sisterly nation cannot be reduced to a few that do not aspire to a better future for their country and only see a future of overpowering the people. The Algerian hand remains extended and our efforts continue and our patience will not run out in order to prioritize the historical ties that connect us to the people of Mali. Our ties will not be shaken by these accidental leaders. In the wider context of Africa, Algeria reiterates and recommits to its role in joint African efforts, in particular as Africa stands at a crossroads today. It is a critical juncture where a juncture facing challenges on one side and opportunities on the other. The African reality makes it urgent to address the conflicts and crises that have not spared any part of the continent. Our continent is more vulnerable to the scourge of terrorism today and the African reality makes it urgent to seize the opportunities to achieve integration and cooperation, including through the African Continental Trade Zone and working together for the betterment of our people. The reality also requires the need to end decades of marginalization. The marginalization that our continent suffers in the different centers of decision making in the world, starting with the Security Council and the World Bank and the IMF, as well as the World Trade Organization. In light of this reality, it is highly concerning that peacekeeping missions in Africa be targeted by a package of restrictions that limit missions' ability to carry out their mandates. In the name of cross-cutting, rather cost-cutting, peacekeeping missions are the most prominent and essential manifestation of international commitment to security and stability in the African continent. Undermining the missions means undermining this essence and commitment to the collective security on which this organization is based. In the Euro-Mediterranean, Algeria continues upholding its responsibility as a constructive partner and as a reliable partner that is fully engaged in all the efforts that aim to achieve security and prosperity in this shared Mediterranean space. The most pressing challenge in the Mediterranean, represented in the Trilogy of Security, Development and Illegal Migration, requires the countries of the North Coast and the countries of the South Coast to adopt a comprehensive and inclusive approach that we hope will be the heart of what we call the new era for the Mediterranean, an approach that will restore to Euro-Mediterranean relations the balance in substance and in form, an approach that will make economic development on the southern front a shared priority in a strategic and urgent manner, and that will restore the balance of roles so that the countries of the North be a driver for growth and development within a balanced partnership based on investment and technology transfer and expanding the prospects of shared prosperity. For two years, Algeria has been privileged and has enjoyed the confidence of the External Assembly through its election as a non-permanent member in the Security Council. Here we are today, about to end this tenure, and we are hopeful that we have lived up to your confidence and have been loyal to the trust that you have granted us. The President of the Republic, Mr. Abdel-Majid Taboun, desired for Algeria's membership in the UN Security Council to be a membership of loyalty to the principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter, a loyalty to Algerians' Arab and African belonging, and loyalty to Algeria's identity and its history of struggle for freedom. Accordingly, we have pursued with all our effort and sincerity to translate these commitments to actions through coordination with our African brothers and sisters within the A3 group and through cooperation with our partners within the wider group of the elected 10 members, as well as through consulting all relevant actors of brotherly and sisterly nations and friendly nations outside the Security Council. We have attempted and exerted our utmost, where we have been successful at times and at other times have not achieved our desired goals. However, we have not surrendered and have never taken for granted a status quo. Our consolation is that the Security Council's inability to address a lot of critical issues at the forefront of which is the issue of Gaza did not silence the international conscience that is loudly heard in the overwhelming majority of the member states in the Security Council and in this UN General Assembly. The international conscience remains alive and alert through this overwhelming majority and therefore Algeria is certain that hope remains alive for a better future, a better future for our United Nations, a better future for the international community and a better future for the whole of humanity. Thank you all and thank you, Madam President. I thank the Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs, National Community Abroad and African Affairs of Algeria.