Qatar, 2002

I would like to thank you,

Sir, for giving me the floor. Allow me to congratulate

you warmly on your assumption of the presidency of

the fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly of

the United Nations. We have no doubt that your

experience, wisdom and infinite patience will lead us

to a successful outcome of the work of this session.

Through you, allow me to congratulate Mr. Hans

Seung-soo on his presidency over the fifty-sixth

session of the General Assembly, which he conducted

with skill and ability. I would also like to thank

Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who leads the

Secretariat at a very delicate and difficult time in the

history of the Organization, a time when it faces many

challenges, pressures and a serious situation of threats

to international peace and security.

I am honoured and pleased to congratulate our

sister State of East Timor on its independence and

accession to the United Nations, which represents the

hope of all the peoples of the world to achieve their

freedom. I would also like to warmly welcome the

Swiss Confederation, which has become a full Member

of the United Nations.

Since the convening of the last session, we have

seen very important events in the international arena, in

the wake of the terrorist attack against the World Trade

Centre in New York. That led to unprecedented

complications in politics and international relations.

Those political and social changes are accelerating and

lead daily to new patterns of conflict.

With respect to combating terrorism, Qatar, as the

Chair of the ninth Islamic summit, called for an

emergency meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the

Organization of the Islamic Conference in Doha in

October 2001. That Conference clearly condemned all

acts of international terrorism, including State

terrorism. It also affirmed the urgent need to agree

upon an international definition of terrorism,

distinguishing between terrorism and legitimate

resistance to foreign aggression and occupation for the

purpose of national liberation and self-determination.

I would like to recall from this rostrum that we

are fully convinced of the validity of the United

Nations Charter and of the leading role played by the

Organization in the maintenance of international peace

and security, as well as in ensuring the development,

prosperity and dignity of humankind.

Here, we have to refer firmly to the need for the

work of the Security Council to be transparent and the

need to renounce the selective implementation of the

provisions of the United Nations Charter. There is no

escaping reviewing the permanent membership of the

Security Council so that a select few will not be able to

continue to use the veto, which can literally invalidate

the opinions of all others, while the United Nations

preaches democracy, participation, justice and equality.

The practices of the Organization must be

completely impartial. The needed measures for the

maintenance of international peace and security must

be applied to all without exception and without

preferential treatment. We cannot allow the resolutions

of the Security Council to be based on double standards

or to be selective in a way that allows Israel not to

implement the resolutions adopted by the Security

Council and the General Assembly.

We cannot accept that the people of Palestine and

the Arab people in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights

and in the south of Lebanon are falling prey to the

barbaric aggression of the Israeli occupation forces

before the eyes of the whole world and world public

opinion. Israel violates the resolutions of international

law, rejecting them without any reaction from the

Security Council or any organs of the United Nations

to put an end to it.

We observe closely and with concern the

deteriorating security situation in the Palestinian

territories and the blatant challenge to the international

community and international laws and norms posed by

the siege of President Arafat and the legitimate, elected

leadership of the Palestinian people. We observe with

concern the assassination, abduction and arrest of

Palestinian leaders, as well as the demolition of houses

on the heads of women, children and the elderly. We

watch closely and with concern the attacks on holy

places, which have been condemned by all states and

representatives of international humanitarian

organizations, including the International Committee of

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the Red Cross, which strongly deplored and

condemned those attacks.

The actions of Israeli forces in Jenin and Gaza

and the massacres perpetrated there constitute blatant

violations of modern international humanitarian law,

international human rights and international

conventions, particularly the Fourth Geneva

Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian

Persons in Time of War of 1949. If it really intends to

achieve security, Israel must take the route of peace by

implementing the resolutions of international law: the

resolutions of the Security Council and the General

Assembly. They all provide for the inalienable right of

the Palestinian people to achieve their legitimate

national aspirations, including self-determination and

the establishment of an independent State on its

national territory with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Those resolutions also call for the withdrawal from the

occupied Syrian territory of the Golan to the line of 4

June 1967, as well as from the rest of occupied

Lebanese territory.

Among the prerequisites required to ensure a

prosperous life for humankind is the basic right to live

without discrimination based on ethnicity, race, colour,

ideology, language, wealth or social origin.

As a people who believe in a revealed religion,

we believe in respecting human rights, because, in

addition to our common laws, we have a divine law,

laid down in the Koran, that tells us to respect such

rights. In Qatar, we protect and maintain human rights

and have made them the standard for our religion and

for our progress. Many countries accuse certain

organizations that profess concern for human rights of

bias, selectivity and double standards because they

concentrate on political and civil rights without paying

any heed to economic, social or cultural rights, which

are no less important than civil or political rights.

Important as they are, civil and political rights may

become devoid of content if we fail to pay heed to the

other rights.

Qatar has made many advances in the protection

of human rights, of the rule of law and of the principles

of democracy and Shura, as well as good governance.

We have just completed a new national Constitution

that provides for public freedoms and free

parliamentary elections. It also, for the first time, gives

women the full right to vote and to be represented.

We in the Middle East are threatened by a clear

imbalance of power. Israel is the only country in the

region that possesses an arsenal of nuclear weapons

and refuses to accede to the Treaty on the Non-

Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. We appeal to all

peace-loving countries to demand that Israel accede to

the Treaty and submit its nuclear installations to the

safeguards system of the International Atomic Energy

Agency.

At the present time, we see a positive direction in

certain international issues. With regard to the situation

in Iraq, we welcome that country's acceptance of the

return of international inspectors and its avowed

commitment to implement relevant Security Council

resolutions and to resume dialogue with the United

Nations. We reaffirm the need to maintain Iraq's

sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, and

we hope that resumed dialogue will lead to a

comprehensive solution and to a suspension of and

ultimately an end to the sanctions, which are

causing great suffering among the Iraqi people.

Another example of what the United Nations

must do to right current wrongs is the complete lifting

of the sanctions imposed on the Libyan Arab

Jamahiriya, which has fulfilled its obligations and

surrendered the wanted suspects.

As we meet today, developing countries are

experiencing serious economic difficulties that are

negatively affecting their development in an

environment of heavy foreign debt and declining

official development assistance. They are also facing

restrictions on their exports to world markets and

unfair prices for their basic commodities. Africa's

economic situation is still very serious, despite all the

efforts of African countries and of the international

community to overcome that continent's development

problems. The economic situation is worsening, and

foreign debt is increasing. Whatever economic gains

are achieved must therefore be spent on debt servicing

and on correcting the imbalance resulting from the

reverse flow of resources. Africa is also the continent

that is suffering most from HIV/AIDS.

We support the efforts of the Secretary-General,

and we greatly value his initiatives to reform the

United Nations. With regard to the reform programme

proposed in 1997 and approved by the General

Assembly, we note with concern that its development

goals have yet to be achieved. We have witnessed a

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continuous decline in financing that has led to the

reduction of development programmes. We believe that

the Organization's socio-economic development

activities must be given highest priority, in accordance

with the principles and purposes of the Charter.

Without development, there will no lasting peace or

security.

The Millennium Declaration set out many

objectives, including that of achieving sustainable

economic development and, in particular, sustainable

human development, with human beings as its crucial

element. Accordingly, human development is the major

topic of the high-level segment of the Economic and

Social Council's current substantive session. The

Millennium Declaration objectives of eradicating

poverty, achieving economic development, halting the

spread of HIV/AIDS and bringing that disease under

control by 2015 all require our concerted effort and

political will. In addition, the voluntary contributions

and direct financial investment flows of local and

international donors are required to achieve the

objectives of the Monterrey Conference, the most

important of which is the commitment by rich

industrialized countries of 0.7 per cent of their gross

national product to official development assistance.

Those countries made the same commitment at

previous conferences. Here, I must mention the Doha

Conference in the light of the importance it attached to

free trade, market liberalization and infrastructure

expansion in increasing the competitive ability of

developing countries, in particular African countries.

That Conference also emphasized the importance of the

transfer of information and communications

technology, economic diversity, foreign trade and

increased market access, as well as increasing flows of

foreign resources and reducing debt.

Qatar has always opposed coercive, unilateral

sanctions imposed by one single country on another

sovereign country over which it has no legal

jurisdiction. We believe that imposing sanctions on

other countries with a view to serving economic

interests or achieving political objectives represents a

violation of the principles of equal sovereignty among

states and self-determination, as provided for by the

Charter of the United Nations and relevant United

Nations resolutions. Therefore, Qatar reaffirms its

categorical rejection of all attempts to implement local

laws across borders on the citizens and companies of

other States to force those countries to comply with

unilateral economic measures that transcend the legal

jurisdiction of States. That is in direct violation of

international law, of the provisions of the Charter and

of the rules of the World Trade Organization.

The President: We have heard the last speaker in

the general debate for this meeting.