Armenia, 2009

I should like to

warmly congratulate Mr. Treki on his election as

President of the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth

session. We express our readiness to work with him to

achieve the ambitious agenda ahead of us during this

session. I should also like to extend our thanks to

outgoing President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann for his

hard work during the previous session.

Each new session of the General Assembly

provides an opportunity for us to share our

achievements and concerns with each other, and to join

our efforts in moving the global agenda forward. We

are going through a truly challenging period. In the

past year, we were all devastated by the impact of the

financial crisis. The crisis left no corner of the world

and no economic sector untouched. Many countries

experienced unprecedented economic decline, which

seriously challenged their hard-earned advances and

prospects for attaining the Millennium Development

Goals by 2015. Armenia was not spared the dramatic

effects of the ongoing financial crisis. However, the

Armenian Government has done best to safeguard the

socially vulnerable. No budget cuts have been made in

the social sector.

We believe that our endeavours must be guided

first and foremost by the need to mitigate the human

costs of the crisis in order to avoid serious

consequences for human security. We believe that an

equitable global recovery requires the full participation

of all countries, irrespective of their size and level of

development, in shaping appropriate responses to the

crisis. And we have to come together here, in this

universal body, to take decisions that will help us

overcome the past and build for the future, because

there are still painful gaps separating the dreams of our

people and their prospects.

In accordance with their respective mandates, the

United Nations funds, programmes and agencies have

an important role to play in advancing development in

accordance with national strategies and priorities, and

in assisting countries in achieving the internationally

agreed Millennium Development Goals. We understand

that achieving these goals, the deadline for which is

2015, will require enormous efforts. The General

Assembly will continue to address this issue during its

sixty-fourth session, and Armenia is ready to contribute

to the preparatory process for a high-level meeting on

this topic in September 2010.

We have embarked on the process of United

Nations reform in order to ensure that this forum can

13 09-52604

better reflect present-day realities and to enhance its

capabilities and effectiveness in addressing modern

challenges. Armenia commits itself to strengthening

the institutional capacities of the United Nations,

supports the process of United Nations reform and is

ready to make its contribution.

We have successfully agreed on several vital

decisions, including the creation of the Peacebuilding

Commission and the Human Rights Council. We aspire

to further advance the protection of human rights, in

conformity with the obligations of Member States, and

we see honest discussion within the Human Rights

Council on outstanding issues and the sharing of

experiences on how to overcome them as the true path

to success in this respect.

We regard the prevention of genocide and the

responsibility to protect as the key principles and

cornerstones of the overall human security system. In

this respect, we commend the report of the Secretary-

General on implementing the responsibility to protect

(A/63/677), which charts a course for the United

Nations to prevent genocide, war crimes and ethnic

cleansing by bolstering the capacities of the

Organization.

As is rightly stated in the report, genocide does

not happen all of a sudden. The instigators propagate

intolerance and hatred, preparing the ground for

violence. As survivors of genocide, we Armenians

welcome all efforts to prevent and combat racist and

xenophobic attitudes. We have done and will continue

to do all we can to provide for continuous advocacy in

favour of the prevention of genocide. The international

community must be vigilant to the development of

such situations and events, and demonstrate its ability

to act in a timely fashion to prevent future tragedies.

We consider achieving the goals of disarmament

and non-proliferation to be major elements of global

and regional security systems. We must shoulder our

responsibilities and work towards not only

non-proliferation and the elimination of nuclear

weapons, but also the elimination of the militaristic

aspirations of some States. It is totally unacceptable

that threats to resolve disputes by military means are

made at the highest level, and that they are left

unchallenged by the international community.

The Nagorny Karabakh peace process, which is

mediated by the co-chairs of the Minsk Group of the

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

(OSCE), is moving forward. The Presidents and

Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Armenia and

Azerbaijan meet regularly to discuss the principles of a

comprehensive resolution of the conflict. Armenia is

convinced that, in order to create an opportunity for

progress in the peaceful settlement of the Nagorny

Karabakh conflict, the parties should commit to

refraining from taking steps that could hamper

dialogue and the peace process.

Azerbaijan consistently misrepresents the essence

of the Nagorny Karabakh problem in the international

arena, as it did two days ago in this forum, trying to

downplay ethnic cleansing and its policy of violence

against the people of Nagorny Karabakh. The

international community will recall Azerbaijan’s open

aggression, large-scale hostilities and war against

Nagorny Karabakh, in which it was also aided by

mercenaries closely linked to terrorist organizations.

These events ultimately claimed lives of tens of

thousands of civilians.

We believe that there is a serious basis for the

settlement of the Nagorny Karabakh problem if the

provisions contained in the declaration signed by the

Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia in

November 2008; the declaration of the Ministers for

Foreign Affairs of the co-chair countries of the OSCE

Minsk Group; and the declaration adopted by the

Ministers for Foreign Affairs of all 56 OSCE member

States in Helsinki in December, are met. Pursuant to

these documents, the parties must commit themselves

to the peaceful settlement of the problem through

negotiations based on the Madrid principles of the

co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.

The basic principles around which negotiations

are currently being held are anchored in benchmark

codes of international law as incorporated in the

Charter of this Organization, the Helsinki Final Act and

other relevant international documents. The

international principles of the non-use and non-threat

of use of force, of the self-determination of peoples

and of territorial integrity are equally viable.

Some have long attempted to downplay the

importance of the notion of the self-determination of

peoples as a second-rate principle in the system of

international law and as inferior to that of territorial

integrity. I have to disappoint the advocates of double

standards. The right to self-determination is an

unconditional clause of international law; it is a

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principle of liberty and of the freedom of any people to

choose its future and fate, and to defend its collective

rights whenever those rights and that future are

jeopardized. If self-determination were a principle

inferior to territorial integrity, there would have been

only 52 Member States of the United Nations, instead

of the current 192.

Trust and accountability among neighbouring

States are guarantees of sustainable cooperation and

durable security in any region. We in the South

Caucasus have yet to witness that. Our region, in fact,

is among the most sensitive hot spots on the world’s

political map, overloaded with a plethora of security

threats and challenges. The region is devastated by

conflicts and inter-State tensions, dividing lines and

economic blockades. Closed borders and ruptured ties

have become the norm of life.

However, a courageous act and a courageous

response hold the promise of changing the situation for

the better. The process of the normalization of

Armenian-Turkish relations was begun in September

by the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan. That

initiative on his part — known as football

diplomacy — promises to bear fruit despite all

difficulties. Over the past year, with the help of our

Swiss mediators and other international partners, we

have made progress towards opening our shared

border, one of the last closed borders in Europe, and

the normalization of our relations with no

preconditions. We trust that the necessary political will

shall finally overcome the mentality of the past and

that the wisdom and courage necessary to taking the

last decisive steps will prevail.

We have been most encouraged by the support of

the international community. We are well aware of the

fundamental and positive implications of the

normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations and of the

opening of the border for the security and stability of

the region.

We must reinforce the bridges between United

Nations Member States, working out mutually

beneficial and comprehensive security and cooperation

plans. Our common objective should be the shaping of

an environment that is safe and prosperous for all. To

meet the political, economic, environmental and social

challenges, we have to jointly muster our efforts,

resources and political determination. Only together

can we successfully confront these challenges and push

forward the international development agenda.