Kyrgyzstan, 2002

Allow me at the outset to congratulate you, Sir, on your

election to the lofty post of President of this

representative world forum and to wish you every

success in your work. Your election as President of the

fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly is

symbolic not only of the personal respect you hold, but

also of the authority your country enjoys in the world

community. In recent decades, the Czech Republic has

been through some hard times. Because of that, you

well understand the problems of Kyrgyzstan, which is

going through a transition from its authoritarian past to

a democratic future.

I take this opportunity to thank Mr. Han Seung-

soo for his excellent work as the President of the

previous session. The present session is significant in

that the Swiss Confederation and, soon, the Democratic

Republic of East Timor will have become Members of

the United Nations. We warmly welcome the

representatives of those countries, who are

participating in this session of the General Assembly.

This is my first address from the rostrum of the

General Assembly as President of the sovereign

Kyrgyz Republic. 11 years have passed since the State

of Kyrgyzstan declared its independence. What has

brought me to the Assembly is my desire to share with

you my thoughts on the most pressing problems of our

national development.

First, I would like to refer to the International

Year of Mountains, which is being celebrated this year

pursuant to a resolution adopted at the fifty-third

session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

It was proclaimed at the initiative of Kyrgyzstan and

other mountainous countries, for which the problem of

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the development of mountainous areas is of crucial

importance. We are very grateful for the support given

to that initiative. Thanks to the efforts of the United

Nations, important events have already taken place at

the regional and national levels. The outcome of the

work done will be discussed at the Global Mountain

Summit, to be held in our capital, Bishkek, at the end

of October. We will create the most favourable

conditions for its work, in the best tradition of Kyrgyz

warmth and hospitality.

I believe the delegates present in the Hall will

agree that among the many complex challenges facing

the world community, the most pressing problems are

developing democracy and guaranteeing human rights

and freedoms. Those goals have been made a top

priority in the Kyrgyz Republic since the earliest days

of its establishment.

We are convinced that in modern day conditions,

unless there is consistent democratization and human

emancipation, progress and prosperity cannot be

achieved. However, the remnants of the authoritarian

Soviet heritage still has a tenacious hold on the minds

of our people, especially among the elderly. There is

good reason why former Soviet States are referred to in

international classifications as transitional countries.

Our experience has shown that the process of transition

is particularly difficult not only in the area of the

economy but in the minds of people.

On our road towards democracy, we have

experienced both joyful success and bitter failure.

When we analysed our failures, we came to understand

that their main cause was a lack of democracy. In order

to give the development of democracy a new and

powerful impetus, I as President proclaimed a new

national idea: Kyrgyzstan, a country of human rights.

We intend to elaborate a democratic code and to

establish a council for democratic security. Recently, in

order to further the process of democratization, I took

the decision to reform our Constitution and to convene

a Constitutional Assembly. During my stay in the

United States, the Constitutional Assembly is at the

concluding stage of its work. The difficulty is that

society has different approaches for developing

democracy. Some forces claiming to be ardent

supporters of democracy consider the essence of

democracy to be the destruction of existing structures

and the undertaking of new experiments. That would

cause the transition from authoritarianism to

democracy to take a very long time, indeed, while

people have long awaited stability. On behalf of the

people of Kyrgyzstan, I would like to assure the world

community that we adhere to the principles of

democracy and will confidently follow that path

despite the difficulties and obstacles that we encounter.

I consider the problem of poverty eradication to

be as important as the problem of the development of

democracy. The problem has worsened under present

conditions in the post-Soviet period. We are not the

only poor country in the world. There are many reasons

for this, and I do not intend to analyse them in my

statement. Poverty has a negative impact on people's

morale and creates many obstacles to developing the

democratic process. Moreover, poverty is a breeding

ground for extremism and international terrorism.

The world community has repeatedly declared its

resolve to help countries in need to overcome poverty.

Mr. George Bush, the President of the United States,

promised to substantially increase assistance to poor

countries when he announced the creation of the

Millennium Challenge Account. We are grateful for

every initiative of the United Nations, the United

Nations Development Programme and other

international organizations, as well as of donor

countries, for their assistance to poor countries.

However, those efforts are still not sufficient.

Following the example of my colleagues from

other poor countries, I would like to call upon the

world community not to slacken its efforts in the

campaign against poverty and to find new resources

and new approaches in solving this problem. That

would help reduce pockets of instability, encourage the

development of democracy and have a positive impact

on the world's development as a whole.

I would like to refer to the problem of

international terrorism, which is the main danger to the

world. New York, where the Assembly is now

gathered, was witness to a terrible tragedy which

showed the horrendous, brute face of terrorism. The

Kyrgyz Republic, which in past years experienced

incursions into its territory by international terrorist

groups, has strongly supported the call of the President

of the United States of America, Mr. George Bush, to

create an anti-terrorism coalition. Together with Russia

and our other partners and allies, Kyrgyzstan joined the

campaign against the horrendous, bestial face of

terrorism. We very much appreciate the work of the

Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Security Council,

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and I assure you that Kyrgyzstan will extend all

possible assistance to the Committee in its work.

At the global, regional and national levels,

Kyrgyzstan is actively participating in the struggle

against international terrorism. We have put our

territory at the disposition of the military forces of the

anti-terrorism coalition. In December of last year, our

capital, Bishkek, hosted an international conference

under the auspices of the United Nations and the

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to

strengthen comprehensive efforts to fight international

terrorism. A Declaration and Programme of Action

adopted at that time established a firm foundation for

action at the global level.

Anti-terrorism centres have been established

within the framework of the Shanghai Organization of

Cooperation and the Commonwealth of Independent

States. Within the framework of the Collective Security

Treaty, Collective Rapid Deployment Forces have been

established with headquarters in Bishkek.

However, there are still many unresolved issues

confronting the anti-terrorist coalition in Afghanistan,

where, until recently, the main redoubt of international

terrorism was located. On 23 September I will be

meeting with President George Bush in the White

House. I believe that the question of our cooperation in

the struggle against terrorism will be a top priority. I

intend to assure the President of the United States that

Kyrgyzstan, acting together with Russia and our other

partners, will discharge its responsibility.

One of the most important points of my statement

to the General Assembly is to draw the Assembly's

attention to a major event in the Kyrgyz Republic. I am

referring to the fact that, next year, in 2003, our people

will be celebrating the 2,200th anniversary of Kyrgyz

Statehood. Taking into account the wishes of wide

segments of our society, I, as President, issued an edict

proclaiming 2003 the year of Kyrgyz Statehood.

For the newly independent States that emerged

from the collapse of the Soviet Union, a search for our

historic and ethnic roots has become a vital task. I am

sure that, at the dawn of their independence, many

States that are now represented in the United Nations

experienced the same desire. Research carried out by

our historians and a study of the works of well-known

orientalists have led us to the conclusion the formation

of the first Kyrgyz State took place at the end of the

third century B. C. This has been convincingly borne

out by ancient Chinese chronicles. The famous Chinese

chronicler Sima Qian, who is considered to be the

Chinese Herodotus, drew up a chronicle in verse about

the existence in far-off times of a Kyrgyz State in the

form of a Kyrgyz princedom. That State flourished at

certain periods and at others merely smouldered. But

national Statehood was carried forward by the Kyrgyz

people for many centuries up to the end of the

twentieth century, when it took the form of the Kyrgyz

Republic, which later became a Member of the United

Nations.

I would like to remind the Assembly that, in

1995, the Kyrgyz people celebrated a great event,

namely, the one thousandth anniversary of our great

work of folk literature, the heroic epic Manas. We are

very grateful to the United Nations for the decision it

took at the time to give that event international

resonance. The celebration in Kyrgyzstan of the one

thousandth anniversary of the Manas epic took place

with great enthusiasm. That contributed to an

unprecedented revival of national spirit and to the unity

of our people.

From this rostrum, I wish to address the

Secretary-General Kofi Annan and all the delegations

participating in the work of the current session to ask

them to adopt a decision to recognize as a great historic

event in the life our country the 2,200th anniversary of

Kyrgyz Statehood, and to give it international status.

That would be accepted by my people with profound

gratitude. It would also do much to promote domestic

stability and further consolidate the multi-ethnic nature

of my nation. In cooperation with other delegations,

my delegation will submit an appropriate draft

resolution on this subject that I, as President of

Kyrgyzstan, would ask the Assembly to support.

Kyrgyzstan's cooperation with the United Nations

is multilateral in nature. It encompasses a wide

spectrum of problems of interest to us all. We have

received unwavering support and assistance from the

United Nations and its specialized agencies at every

stage of our development since the proclamation of

State independence. I should like to take this

opportunity to express our sincere gratitude for that

assistance. I also wish to proclaim from this rostrum

that Kyrgyzstan will in the future remain firmly

committed to the purposes and principles of the

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Organization, and that we will do whatever we can to

make them a reality.