Syria, 2004

I would like to congratulate you, Sir, on your

election as President of the fifty-ninth session of the

General Assembly. I am confident that your wisdom,

drawn from the positions of your friendly country of

Gabon, will stand you in good stead in promoting

dialogue among the peoples and the countries of the

world, in invigorating the role of the United Nations

and in preserving its Charter.

I also express my appreciation, Sir, to your

predecessor, Mr. Julian Hunte, for his efforts to bring

the previous session to a successful conclusion.

I take this opportunity to express our gratitude to

the Secretary-General for his patience and efforts to

make the voice of the United Nations heard in a

precarious international situation, amid volatile

regional conditions, in which force is preferred to law,

wrong preferred to right and war preferred to peace.

Our world has been going through extremely difficult

times since 11 September 2001. That is particularly

true of the United States and the Middle East. The

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United Nations could have very well shared the fate of

the League of Nations in the 1930s, although very little

thought was given to the dire consequences that such a

development would have entailed, given the absence of

other alternatives.

It is no exaggeration to argue that the major

challenges today to the questions of peace, security and

development stem not only from failing to heed the

United Nations Charter but also from manipulating

some of its Articles to greatly disrupt and derail

international relations and to deliberately upset the

international equilibrium that we inherited from the

cold war era.

Thus, it becomes clear that the surge in

extremism, the diversity of its causes and

manifestations and the spread of poverty and hunger

across large parts of the world are not the concern of

only one country, one people or one religion, but,

rather, of all peoples, countries and religions of the

world.

It is also clear that this deteriorating situation,

which the international community acknowledges but

has failed to strive in earnest to remedy, will not serve

anyone in particular. This is all the more true now that

the justifications of the cold war era, with its enormous

expenses on armaments, can no longer be invoked and

that pre-emptive wars, with the great losses in life and

property they entail, have proven useless. The mistakes

committed during the world war on terror, regardless of

whether they were committed in good faith or in bad

faith, have worked as a call to promote and practice

terrorism, which has been embraced by an enemy

whose whereabouts we do not know. This enemy is

committing acts so horrific that they remind us of the

Middle Ages.

In this context, the peoples of the developing

countries are wondering why hundreds of fighter jets

and thousands of soldiers would be hauled across the

continents and why billions of dollars would be spent

to bring about a regime change in certain countries

when those resources could have been channelled —

even partially — into financing education and

development projects in those same countries? When

reform becomes a national and an international

demand, how can we justify to those seeking reform

the fact that the movers and the shakers of the world

chose to impose sanctions instead of investing in peace

and prosperity and chose to spend billions on war

instead of opting for the road that would surely lead to

reform and progress? Is it possible to prove that

throughout history military solutions, and not political

or economic solutions, have been more effective tools

for reform and progress and for saving the lives of

millions of people plagued by injustice, poverty and

disease? At any rate, while political solutions may not

necessarily guarantee full success, military solutions

are definitely a recipe for failure.

Moreover, while such an argument may sound

idealistic, there can be no alternative to political

solutions. The current international dilemma is

exacerbated by military solutions. There are many

examples to prove that argument. We can cite, by way

of example, the situations in Iraq, Afghanistan and

other places.

Left alone, that dilemma will not be solved. It can

only be solved if the leaders of the world work in

earnest and evince the necessary political will to

restore credibility to the United Nations and guarantee

respect for international legitimacy through their

commitment to United Nations resolutions that are

based on the principles and purposes of the Charter.

Justice and equality, it must be recalled, are at the core

of the Charter of this Organization.

The peoples of the world were optimistic about

the great strides that were made in science and

technology and the collective and individual

achievements that spanned all fields of human

endeavour in the past two decades. They aspired to a

globalization with a human face that was based on a

dialogue among civilizations, and synergies with other

cultures, that would keep the spectre of cold and hot

wars at bay. However, some power circles attempted to

exploit those great human achievements to further their

own narrow interests. They devised new colonialist

policies that disappointed the peoples of the world and

turned back the clock.

At the speed of light, the world forgot about the

surge of optimism that overwhelmed many of the

world’s leaders as they addressed this Assembly four

years ago when they celebrated the third Millennium.

Today, a wave of pessimism has taken over the world

because of extremist and intolerant policies advanced

by some strategic think-tanks that were determined to

find a new enemy, under any pretext, after the fall of

the Soviet Union.

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Israel has contributed to the creation of many of

those flimsy pretexts. It has packaged them with great

care, breathed life into many of them, and distributed

them among the delegations that owe allegiance to it. It

was hoping to achieve the following: first, to incite the

Americans in particular and the West in general to

wage endless wars in the Middle East, in order to

underscore the old-new theory of Israel that the Arab-

Israeli conflict is not the core of the problems of the

region. To prove our point we refer to the argument

promoted by Israel that the situation in Iraq and its

repercussions are more dangerous and complicated

than that prevailing in the occupied Arab territories and

Palestine. Sharon is trying to mislead world public

opinion into believing that achieving peace would

require only the dismantling of some Jewish settler

outposts in Gaza, not withdrawal from the West Bank

and the occupied Palestinian territories, let alone

withdrawal from East Jerusalem and accepting a just

solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees.

Secondly, Israel hoped to divert the attention of

the world and camouflage the settlement activities in

the occupied Arab territories that have continued

unabated, while continuing to build the racist

segregation wall and lessening the importance of State

terror perpetrated by Israel on a daily basis. Israel has

repackaged its policies as an act of self-defence that

does not warrant condemnation and denunciation even

though it targets innocent civilians.

But Israel has not fully succeeded in realizing its

goals, and even where it has, that success will be short-

lived because Israel has in recent years transformed its

regular army into gangs bent on committing systematic

killings and war crimes against Palestinian civilians,

all perpetrated in the territories it occupies in the West

Bank and Gaza. Killing the Palestinians often occurs in

the course of house demolitions that terrorize their

wretched occupants, who frequently look death in the

eye.

All this notwithstanding, the defenceless

Palestinians have stayed the course and refused to

surrender or leave. Israel bears an important share of

the responsibility for the intensification and worsening

of the American predicament in Iraq by avoiding the

resumption of the peace process despite the hand

extended to it in peace by the Palestinians, Syrians, and

Lebanese.

I must repeat that Israel bears an important share

of the responsibility for the intensification and

worsening of the American predicament in Iraq owing

to its failure to resume the peace process. The Israeli

course of action may come back to haunt it because its

continued occupation of the Arab lands is a major

cause of the rejection of American policies in the

broader Middle East.

That is also true in Europe where polls conducted

a year ago showed that most of the citizens of the

European Union believe that Israel poses a threat to

international peace.

Among the strategic mistakes committed by the

think-tanks and research centres that owe their

allegiance to Israel is to mislead the Israelis into

believing that the new Iraq will hasten to conclude

peace agreements with Israel and establish diplomatic

relations with it before it withdraws from the occupied

Arab territories. They ignored the fact that the Iraqis

refused to adopt the new flag that was designed for

their country after the war simply because its colours

somehow bear resemblance to the Israeli flag.

The deteriorating situation in Iraq remains a

source of great concern for my country and other

countries in the region and the world. That state of

affairs should prompt all of us to mobilize all efforts to

win the battle for peace in post-war Iraq.

Syria, a neighbouring country directly concerned

with events in Iraq — given our historic and

geographical ties as well as our common national

bonds with the Iraqi people — has spared no effort to

guarantee Iraq’s stability, security, independence,

territorial integrity and the unity of its people. We

stand ready to cooperate with the neighbouring

countries and all the parties concerned, including the

United Nations, to enable the Iraqi people to govern

themselves, manage their resources and establish

optimal relations with their neighbours.

Syria has repeatedly declared its commitment to a

just and comprehensive peace. We continue to call for

the withdrawal of Israel from all the Arab territories

occupied in 1967, for guaranteeing the legitimate rights

of the Palestinian people, including their right to

establish their own independent State with Jerusalem

as its capital, in accordance with the resolutions of

international legitimacy, namely, Security Council

resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), the Madrid

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terms of reference and the Arab Peace Initiative

endorsed by the Beirut summit of 2002.

That was the basis of Syria’s serious engagement

in the peace negotiations for over a decade. The

literature published on the subject recently in the

United States and Israel bears witness to the

seriousness with which Syria approached those

negotiations. What the peace process lacks today is a

strategic Israeli decision comparable to the Syrian

decision to achieve peace in the region.

It was rather disparaging that the Foreign

Minister of Israel used this rostrum of international

legitimacy to ignore the facts and selectively refer to a

resolution recently adopted by the Security Council on

Lebanon. Israel violates Lebanese airspace, territorial

waters, land borders and sovereignty on a daily basis

and continues to occupy parts of Lebanese territory.

The representative of Israel tried, in vain, to

misguide the international community. The world

community today bears witness to Israel’s persistent

non-compliance with 40 Security Council and 600

General Assembly resolutions, all of which call upon

Israel to withdraw from the occupied Arab territories

so that a just and comprehensive peace can be

established in the region. Soon after the adoption of

every resolution Israel would reject it, levelling

accusations and heaping insults on the Organization. It

has refused to allow entry to members of fact-finding

missions, and has even harassed them. Given all those

facts, does anyone have the right to ask whether the

statements by the representative of Israel mark the

beginning of a radical change in the position of his

Government, perhaps indicating the pursuit of a policy

that respects international legitimacy and is committed

to compliance with its resolutions?

For centuries our region has endured more

foreign threats and onslaughts, acts of aggression,

misrepresentations of facts and use of force against our

peoples than any other region. Its potential has been

wasted and its material and intellectual resources

squandered, thus preventing it from attaining its

development goals and advancing its capacities. The

Middle East suffers an explosive situation brought

about by Israeli’s expansionist policies, continued

occupation and virtual sabotage of any chance for

peace in the region. Furthermore, Israel’s acquisition of

a nuclear arsenal constitutes a major destabilizing

factor in the Middle East region that threatens the

future of its peoples.

Syria was among the first countries of the region

to call for declaring the Middle East region a zone free

of all weapons of mass destruction, in particular

nuclear weapons. We have seriously worked to attain

that objective. We have joined the Non-Proliferation

Treaty (NPT) and concluded a comprehensive

safeguards agreement with the International Atomic

Energy Agency (IAEA). We have also contributed to

numerous initiatives to attain that goal, most recently

through the draft resolution we submitted on behalf of

the Arab Group to the Security Council on

29 December 2003 (see A/58/667, annex). The draft

resolution called for the establishment of a zone free of

all weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East

region, in particular nuclear weapons, in the context of

a collective international monitoring regime under

United Nations supervision, which would enhance the

role of multilateral international disarmament

conventions.

International terrorism is a cause for concern for

us all. Together we should work to eradicate that

dangerous phenomenon by addressing its root causes.

It is on this basis that Syria has condemned terrorism in

all its forms and manifestations. We condemn the

kidnapping and killing of innocent people and the

targeting of civilians, government institutions,

humanitarian agencies, religious establishments,

international organizations and diplomatic missions.

In that context, we reiterate our condemnation of

the heinous terrorist act that killed innocent children in

a school in Beslan, Russia. We also call on the

international community to condemn the systematic

State terror perpetrated by Israel in the occupied

Palestinian territories against the defenceless

Palestinian people, as well as the many massacres

perpetrated by Israeli occupation forces, in which

innocent children, women and the elderly are killed.

During its tenure on the Security Council, Syria

strove to support the Council’s efforts to combat

international terrorism. It has acceded to most of the

international counter-terrorism conventions as well as

to the Arab and Organization of the Islamic Conference

anti-terrorism conventions. The two latter conventions

define crimes of terrorism and distinguish between

terrorism and the legitimate right of occupied peoples

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to resist occupation in accordance with international

law and the United Nations Charter.

My country is following with great concern the

developments in the brotherly Sudan. That concern

stems primarily from our commitment to the territorial

integrity of the Sudan and the unity of its people. We

view with satisfaction the positions and measures

adopted by the Government of the Sudan to address the

humanitarian crisis in Darfur. We believe that the

League of Arab States and the African Union can play

an important role in the settlement of the crisis.

Syria welcomes the increased role of the African

Union in seeking effective solutions to the major issues

facing the countries and the peoples of Africa. We

believe that the African Union’s conflict settlement

mechanisms, including its Peace and Security Council,

will strengthen the role of that important continent and

its ability to face the challenges of peace and

development.

In the Millennium Declaration, world leaders

underscored the need to create an environment

favourable to development and to eradicate poverty at

the national and global levels. Have we acted upon

those commitments? How far have we gone on the road

towards implementation of the Millennium

Development Goals? Have we taken the necessary

steps and cooperated far enough to give the necessary

impetus to efforts towards progress in the entire

developing world?

Development is a human right to which every

human being is entitled. It is not an exclusive privilege

available to one side to the detriment of the other,

regardless of the disparities between them. That right

should be accorded priority status on our agenda, and it

must not be manipulated for political gains.

It is heartening to note that some enlightened

leaders have taken it upon themselves to shed light on

two of the most critical problems of our world: poverty

and hunger. In launching the Action Against Hunger

and Poverty, they proposed practical collective

solutions to preserve man’s dignity. Syria welcomes the

Declaration issued by the world leaders in response to

the initiative of the Brazilian President to discuss that

question.

Syria has effectively contributed to the debate on

the reform of the United Nations system, the

revitalization of the General Assembly and the reform

of the Security Council and the increase of its

membership. Syria hopes that, at this session, the

Assembly will continue to address the urgent questions

of peace and development so that a broad consensus

will emerge and coordinated measures will be adopted

towards resolving those questions. The prime objective

of reforming the United Nations is to enhance its

ability to face the new threats and challenges.

However, reform should be built on commitment to the

principles and purposes of the Charter.

Syria is following with keen interest the work of

the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and

Change appointed by the Secretary-General to review

current and future threats to international peace and

security and the current state of affairs of the main

organs of the United Nations, with a view to submitting

proposals on enhancing their roles. Syria will be

participating in the deliberations among Member States

on the proposals and opinions of the Panel.

As we have made clear in past years, Syria

supports reforming the Security Council and increasing

its membership. In our view, that reform should be

based on the principles of universality, effectiveness,

democratic participation and geographical

representation, particularly of developing countries.

Syria has consistently stressed the importance of

assigning a permanent seat on the Security Council to

the Arab States, to be allocated by rotation among the

Member States in accordance with the procedures of

the League of Arab States.

Since its establishment, the United Nations has

successfully overcome many acute regional and

international crises. Its Charter has had to coexist with

some of those crises. At times, the United Nations has

dealt with those crises successfully. At other times, it

has skirted them without actually coming to grips with

them. A case in point is the Palestinian question, which

is as old as the United Nations itself. The Arab-Israeli

conflict still rages in spite of the fact that the United

Nations has adopted more than 600 resolutions on the

subject. Israel, however, has not implemented a single

one of these resolutions and continues to find

protection both inside and outside the United Nations.

A lot has been said about establishing a greater

Middle East. We are convinced that success in

achieving that will remain elusive unless the relevant

resolutions are implemented and peace is restored, in

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accordance with the aspirations of the people of the

region and the world.