Myanmar, 2010

May I, on behalf of

the Myanmar delegation and on my own behalf, begin

by extending to the President our warm congratulations

on his well-deserved election to the presidency of the

General Assembly at its sixty-fifth session. We are

confident that under his wise and able leadership our

deliberations will produce fruitful results. Allow me

also to express my delegation’s appreciation to his

predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki

of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

There is no doubt that the United Nations is the

best forum for practising multilateralism to address the

challenges facing the world today. The near-universal

participation of the world’s nations in this global body

is a living testimony to that. At the heart of its Charter

lies the maintenance of international peace and security

as the main noble purpose of the United Nations, which

all Member States are committed to strive for.

While the United Nations has been devoting the

larger portion of its attention to maintaining

international peace and security, new forms of global

challenges such as climate change, poverty, hunger,

water and energy insecurity have emerged and demand

the international community’s urgent and careful

attention. At the same time, humankind’s shared dream

of making the world a prosperous, peaceful, just and

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secure place remains elusive. The world today remains

full of inequality, injustice, conflict, instances of the

use of force, interference in the internal affairs of

States and attempts to impose domination on

developing nations.

Against that backdrop, the pre-eminent role of the

United Nations in advancing peace, security and

development must be asserted and enhanced in order to

effectively address those daunting challenges. We

therefore wish to stress the pressing need for

strengthening the United Nations with speedy reform

measures, adapting it to present-day realities in order

to make it more democratic and effective in meeting

growing challenges.

Myanmar firmly believes that any reform effort

must be aimed at strengthening the central role of the

United Nations in global governance. We share the

widespread view that the United Nations must be

reformed to reflect its increasing membership and to

push for internal reform measures, including

revitalization of the General Assembly and reform of

the Security Council. We share the view that the reform

of the Council must be designed to make it more

transparent, more efficient and more accountable. We

also support the idea of expanding both categories of

Council membership.

With only five years remaining before the target

deadline, the international community must step up its

efforts to realize the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs) by 2015. We therefore welcome the successful

convening of the High-level Plenary Meeting on the

MDGs and its sideline activities last week here in New

York. While important improvements have been made

globally, progress towards achieving our MDG targets

is not sufficient as yet.

Progress remains uneven and varies from region

to region. While national Governments have the

primary responsibility to ensure progress, the

international community must help by creating an

environment that would enable developing countries to

make greater strides on their road to development.

International assistance plays an important catalytic

role in the developing countries’ efforts to attain their

development goals.

We therefore wish to emphasize here that

fulfilment by developed countries of their official

development assistance commitments, increased

investment flows, market access and resolution of debt

problems are essential to enabling the developing

countries to realize their MDG targets. It is high time

that the unjust and coercive economic measures and

trade embargoes that are hampering the attainment of

the MDGs and the development of the developing

countries, and thus hurting the people, be removed.

We are pleased to report that despite challenges,

Myanmar has made certain progress towards achieving

most of the eight MDGs in varying degrees, especially

in areas such as poverty alleviation, food security and

the promotion of education and health.

As a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation

of Nuclear Weapons and to the Treaty on the South-

East Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, Myanmar has all

along recognized the legitimate right of every State to

the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

However, we firmly oppose the proliferation or

production of nuclear weapons and strongly support

any efforts leading to realization of the vision of a

nuclear-weapon-free world.

Therefore we heartily welcomed the signing of

the New START treaty by the leaders of the United

States and the Russian Federation with a view to

reducing their respective nuclear arsenals. It gave us

hope and expectation with respect to the elimination of

nuclear weapons and further reduction and limitation

of strategic offensive arms. We also join others in

calling for the early entry into force and full

implementation of the New START treaty.

In our noble fight against growing transnational

crime and terrorism, no single country can act alone, as

it requires a global solution and concerted action by the

world’s nations. Myanmar unequivocally condemns all

forms and manifestation of terrorism. We are working

closely with the international community to strengthen

our efforts and cooperation in regional and multilateral

frameworks in order to prevent and combat terrorism

and transnational crime, such as illicit drug trafficking,

trafficking in persons and cybercrime. We are also

working together with fellow members of the

Association of Southeast Asian Nations to step up

efforts to deal with prevention, control, preparedness

and response to pandemic diseases in our region.

The issue of climate change has become a

pressing global challenge that threatens humankind.

The environmental problem knows no national

boundaries; no country can be insulated from the

consequences of climate change. The unprecedented

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frequency and severity of recent natural disasters, such

as the earthquake in Haiti, floods in China and Pakistan

and heat waves around the world, clearly testify to the

consequences of global climate change.

Myanmar was also a victim of climate change in

May 2008, when it was hit by the devastating Cyclone

Nargis, the strongest ever in our history. After more

than two years we are pleased to say that we have now

passed the emergency relief stage and successfully

rebuilt better in the affected areas through our massive

reconstruction efforts, together with the United

Nations, ASEAN and the international community. I

wish to take this opportunity to express our

appreciation to the international community for all the

humanitarian assistance to Myanmar in response to that

natural disaster.

In addressing the pressing global issue of climate

change we must redouble our efforts not only to reduce

harmful greenhouse gas emissions but also to provide

financial resources and technology to developing

countries so that they might take effective mitigation

and adaptation measures. Although industrialized

countries are mainly responsible for climate change,

the developing countries are the most severely affected

by its consequences. Myanmar therefore believes that

any approach to address climate change must be based

on the principle of common but differentiated

responsibilities and respective capabilities.

We therefore look forward to the United Nations

Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico, later

this year. We hope the negotiations in that Conference

will result in fruitful outcomes that will translate into

concrete action on commitments made by the

developed countries to reduce substantive emissions

and to assist developing countries in their mitigation

and adaptation efforts.

May I take this opportunity to briefly apprise this

Assembly of ongoing political developments in my

country, Myanmar.

Today, Myanmar is at a critical phase of its

political transformation. The multiparty-democracy

general elections are set to be held on 7 November

2010, as the fifth step of our charted political road

map. A total of 37 political parties, including those

representing various ethnic nationalities and groups,

will take part. Over 3,000 candidates will contest for a

total of 1,171 seats in the Peoples’ Parliament, the

National Parliament and state/regional parliaments.

Such a large participation has made it crystal clear that

the elections have become virtually inclusive. Political

parties have already started their campaign activities.

The people will exercise their democratic right to elect

the representatives of their choice who can best serve

their interests.

Based upon its ample experience and lessons

learned in holding multiparty general elections,

Myanmar is confident of its ability to conduct the

elections in an orderly manner. Whatever challenges

may face us, we are committed to do our best to hold

successful, free and fair general elections in the best

interest of the country and its people.

As our new State Constitution subscribes to the

present foreign policy, we believe that the new

Government to emerge after the elections will continue

to embrace the policy of maintaining and strengthening

friendly relations with all nations and will work closely

with the United Nations. Myanmar looks forward to

strengthening closer engagements with the

international community in the post election era.