Qatar, 2005

It

gives me great pleasure at the outset to extend to you,

Mr. President, our congratulations upon your election

to the presidency of this sixtieth session of the General

Assembly. We wish you every success in discharging

your functions. I would also like to extend thanks and

appreciation to your predecessor, His Excellency

Mr. Jean Ping, for his valuable efforts in conducting

the work of the Assembly’s fifty-ninth session,

especially his efforts to reach a consensus on the final

document of the world summit of 2005.

I would also like to thank His Excellency

Mr. Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United

Nations, for his tireless efforts to strengthen the role of

our international Organization.

World leaders who met at United Nations

Headquarters to follow up on the outcome of the

Millennium Summit and the coordinated and integrated

implementation and follow-up of the outcomes of the

major United Nations conferences and summits in the

social, economic and related fields have managed to

adopt a document that calls for implementing reforms

in the United Nations and for taking bolder collective

steps to combat poverty, achieve development,

establish international security and uphold human

rights.

The world today is experiencing extremely

difficult economic conditions which pose a real threat

to the process of social and economic development in

the developing countries, especially the least developed

countries, and pose a major threat to the development

of their peoples. That situation is the result of such

factors as a decline in official development assistance;

unfair international terms of trade; the imposition of

restrictions on the access of their exports to world

markets; unfair prices for their commodity exports; a

heavy external debt burden; and the adverse effects of

globalization.

Despite the progress made in many fields of

international cooperation, the problems of hunger,

poverty and such diseases as AIDS, malaria and

tuberculosis have taken on horrific dimensions and

continue to pose major challenges to the international

community. Unless the latter makes concerted efforts

to accelerate equitable development in the developing

countries, especially the least developed countries, the

Millennium Goal of halving poverty by 2015 will

remain elusive.

The international community, by resolving, at the

Millennium Summit, to declare war on poverty by

launching an ongoing campaign to make the right to

development a reality for all peoples, has made an

implicit commitment to creating a social, economic and

political environment in the developing countries,

especially the least developed countries, that would be

more favourable to the translation into concrete reality

of the right to development for all of their peoples.

That would provide cohesion and equitable social

integration for their societies as well as a real

opportunity to eradicate poverty, enabling them to

enjoy full, productive and gainful employment. The

international community also resolved at the

Millennium Summit to seek to achieve a fair and just

globalization that embraces everyone, in order to spare

the developing countries, especially the least developed

countries, the danger of being marginalized within the

international economy.

At the Millennium Summit, world leaders

affirmed that international cooperation was the most

important factor in making the world a better place to

live in. They also affirmed that free trade,

liberalization of the economy and interdependence are

the best means to accelerate equitable economic

development in the developing countries.

The international community is at a critical stage

of the negotiations related to the Doha Development

Agenda. Those negotiations made concrete progress

last year in some difficult and controversial areas.

Agreement was reached on the launching of

negotiations regarding the question of trade

concessions, one of the four questions which were left,

38

by agreement, outside the scope of the Doha

Programme of Action: investment, competition, trade

and environment and trade concessions. However, that

agreement by the developed countries was, regrettably,

conditional on the non-holding of negotiations on the

other three questions.

We are looking forward to the achievement of

solid, ambitious progress at the sixth World Trade

Organization Conference in Hong Kong, and we hope

that we will be able to conclude negotiations in 2006.

The developing countries have fulfilled their

pledges, and we hope that the upcoming negotiations

regarding the implementation of the outcome of this

summit will translate into reality the global partnership

for the achievement of the internationally agreed

development goals. We hope that the right to

development will become a living reality and that the

developed countries will honour their pledges,

including increasing official development assistance to

0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product, and will

accelerate the process of forgiving the external debt of

all poor countries.

We have often stated that peace in the Middle

East can be achieved only through the implementation

of the resolutions of the Security Council and of the

General Assembly. All of those resolutions recognize

the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, foremost

among which is the right to self-determination and to

the establishment of their independent State on their

national soil, with Al-Quds as its capital; withdrawal

from the occupied Golan Heights up to the border of

4 June 1967; and full withdrawal from the rest of the

Lebanese territories still under occupation.

On that basis, the international mediation process

produced the road map, which affirms the principle of

land for peace and calls for the withdrawal of Israel

from the occupied territories and the establishment of

the State of Palestine.

The Arab summit, meeting in Beirut in March

2002, endorsed an international initiative calling for

the normalization of relations between the Arab States

and Israel in return for Israel’s withdrawal to the 1967

border.

The Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is an

important and positive first step, which, we hope, will

be followed by similar steps in all the Palestinian

territories and the other occupied Arab territories, in

accordance with internationally binding resolutions and

the relevant initiatives and agreements, in order to

bring about stability, security and a comprehensive and

just peace for all States and peoples of the region.

I cannot fail to mention the difficult conditions

experienced by the fraternal Iraqi people. We hope that

the new constitution will embody the hopes and

aspirations of the Iraqi people and contribute to the

establishment of security and stability in the country.

We hope also that it will take into consideration the

interests of all segments of the Iraqi population, that all

the people will feel that they all are part of the

established system, and that the unity and the national

identity of Iraq will be preserved.

Believing as it does in the great importance of the

Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

(NPT) to international peace and security, the State of

Qatar has acceded to the Treaty and calls from this

rostrum on all States to do so. It also seeks to transform

the Middle East region into a zone that is totally free

from all kinds of weapons of mass destruction.

My country has unambiguously condemned

terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. It has also

supported all Security Council resolutions related to

the question of terrorism, and it has cooperated with

the international community in implementing those

agreements. However, we feel that success in

eradicating that phenomenon requires that we deal with

its underlying causes, including the social, economic

and political aspects that provide a fertile breeding

ground for terrorism.

We also support the idea of convening an

international conference on terrorism and of drawing

up an international strategy to combat it. In that

context, we feel that defining terrorism and clearly

distinguishing it from the struggle waged by peoples in

exercise of their legitimate right to defend their

freedom and enjoy self-determination must be the most

important norm and enjoy international consensus.

This is a right that is enshrined in all international

norms and practices.

Our world today more than ever needs a

comprehensive authority and frame of reference that is

qualified to perform its role as an international

instrument; one that seeks to achieve international

cooperation in resolving international problems of a

social and economic nature, as well as consolidating

security and stability, maintaining international peace,

39

and enhancing respect for human rights and

fundamental freedoms for all. Moreover, we must

earnestly seek to respect this global diversity, protect it

and allow it to prosper.

Hence, we feel that the proposal to establish a

standing Human Rights Council, with a smaller

membership, to be elected by a two-thirds majority

only, merits further study in serious intergovernmental

negotiations, with a view to achieving consensus on the

establishment of the proposed Council, its membership,

its mandate, and the organ destined to be its parent

body, which we hope will be the General Assembly.

We must commit ourselves to human rights, as

enshrined in the United Nations Charter, and we must

fully comply with internationally recognized human

rights standards.

The question of expanding the Security Council

and the concept of collective security require further

study and intergovernmental negotiations so as to

arrive at a consensus on these important questions.

In this context, we support the Secretary-General

on the question of reforming the United Nations

Secretariat for the reasons indicated in his report

entitled “In Larger Freedom”. However, we feel that

any proposals to reform the Secretariat are extremely

important and must be the subject of careful study,

discussion and negotiation by the General Assembly.