At the outset,
I would like to congratulate His Excellency Mr. Sam
Kutesa on his election as President of the General
Assembly at its sixty-ninth session. We wish him
success in his mission. I would also like to thank His
Excellency Mr. John Ashe for his work during his
presidency. And I thank His Excellency Secretary-
General Ban Ki-moon for his efforts to promote and
operationalize the role of the United Nations.
The start of this year’s session comes at a time
when recent international developments are affecting
the security and safety of all humankind. In that
regard, it is essential that the United Nations live up
to its role in the maintenance of international peace
and security through all the mechanisms and means
provided for in the Charter of the United Nations,
explore every possible way of preventing conflicts and
addressing their root causes, and work to settle them
by peaceful means. We cannot achieve international
peace and security without a dialogue based on the
principle of equality and compliance with international
law, implementation of the resolutions of international
legality and respect for the principles of human rights
and the rights of peoples.
The Middle East went through an extremely
dangerous phase during the recent war on our
Palestinian brothers. There are no guarantees that it
will not recur. Israel continues to persist in its policies
of occupation and to defy the will of the international
community by confiscating land in the West Bank and
building settlements in an effort to perpetuate that
occupation. Humankind was shocked by the tragic
scenes and unprecedented images of destruction during
the latest round of aggression targeting civilians in
Gaza. Babies were killed in their mothers’ arms, almost
half a million Palestinians were displaced and the Gaza
Strip was virtually destroyed when people had hardly
managed to rebuild after the destruction inflicted on
Gaza during the previous war. Under international
law and international humanitarian law, such acts are
defined as crimes against humanity. The arrogance
of power will not prevail over the resistance of the
Palestinian people. I salute their steadfast resistance in
the face of the occupation in Gaza and their insistence
on regaining their legitimate rights. May the souls of
the Palestinian martyrs rest in peace.
Israel must realize that it can achieve security for
its people only through peace, and that the occupation
is bound to end. The damage caused by Israel’s repeated
acts of aggression in the Gaza Strip in recent years,
the unjust blockade imposed on it and the destruction
wreaked on its infrastructure make it incumbent
on the international community to compel Israel to
implement internationally agreed-on resolutions, fulfil
its obligations and hasten to remove every obstacle
to lifting the blockade and launching the process of
reconstructionn. The State of Qatar will spare no effort
to provide assistance for the reconstruction of the Gaza
Strip, and we urge every country to follow suit.
The international community’s response to the
aspirations of the Palestinian people to freedom
and national independence is vital to affirming the
justice of international legality, especially since the
question of Palestine is the last remaining issue on
the decolonization agenda. In that context, temporary
solutions and piecemeal settlements have proved useless
and unacceptable. Israel’s intransigence compels us to
resort to the United Nations as a framework that can
accommodate all parties.
The Security Council should shoulder its moral
and legal responsibilities by upholding the principles
of international legality and human rights and avoiding
the selectivity that has characterized its approach to
this issue in recent times. It should adopt a resolution,
under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,
forcing Israel to end its occupation of the lands it seized
in 1967 and to implement the two-State solution agreed
on by the international community, according to a clear
and time-bound political plan, within the framework of
peace negotiations leading to a permanent settlement of
the Palestinian question through a two-State solution,
in accordance with the Arab Peace Initiative and the
relevant internationally legitimate resolutions. The
world is duty-bound to persuade the Palestinians that
those who killed their children in Gaza will not be
received in diplomatic forums as if they had carried
out a civilized action because they had bombed
Palestinians from the air without staining their hands
with Palestinian blood.
The tragedy of the Syrian people, now in its fourth
year, represents one of the major challenges in the Middle
East. This humanitarian disaster has been exacerbated
and is becoming increasingly dangerous by the lack of
a clear vision for a solution to the crisis, continued acts
of murder and destruction, violations of human rights,
the terrible human suffering and the displacement
of nearly half of the Syrian people. This makes it
incumbent on the international community to strive
to end the bloodshed and the systematic destruction of
Syria by a regime that forces its people to choose
between accepting its presence or burning down their
country.
We have already warned that the continuation of the
regime’s policy of terrorism, genocide and displacement,
as well as the failure to provide support to the Syrian
revolution when it was still a civilian revolution
demanding freedom and dignity, would push many
Syrians to opt for self-defence. We have also warned
the international community from the outset that if no
action were taken about the situation in Syria, we would
reach the point at which we now find ourselves. When
the Syrian people defended themselves with weapons,
we advocated providing them with support before the
regime destroyed their country and before extremist
organizations arose and flourished. No red lines were
drawn to stop the actions of the Syrian regime. The
world remained silent even when Syrian children and
women were killed with chemical weapons and when
its populated neighbourhoods were levelled with barrel
bombs. Eventually, the Syrian people found themselves
stuck between the grip of terrorism of the regime and
that of extremist forces that thrived in the swamp of
violence. The war of genocide waged and the deliberate
displacement carried out by the regime remain major
crimes.
Confronted by this grim reality, the international
community needs to provide all aspects of humanitarian
aid to the Syrian people inside and outside their areas
of refuge. We reiterate our call on the Security Council
to promptly shoulder its legal and humanitarian
responsibilities. It must support the Syrian people
against the two dangers posed by the terrorism and
crimes of genocide of the regime, and by the terrorist
forces that have taken advantage of the prevailing
misery, bitterness and the absence of the State and the
international community. The first danger has begotten
the second.
Many areas of the world suffer from the terrorism
being perpetrated under different pretexts and slogans
that threaten the security and stability of the world and
hamper the achievement of the desired development. No
civilization has been spared terrorism in the modern era.
There is no doubt that the most affected communities
are those in which this evil seed had grown. This
phenomenon is hostile to the diversity and pluralism
that enrich communities. In the case of the affected
Arab and Islamic societies, terrorism affects innocent
people, impoverishes our societies by depriving them
of humanitarian and religious diversity, muzzles the
real demands of the peoples, and offends religion with
its superficial and apostatic interpretations.
Therefore we must all redouble our efforts to fight
this phenomenon whatever its forms, target or source
might be. It has been proved beyond any doubt that
terrorism can be defeated only in its social environment.
If societies are to stand with us in the fight against
terrorism, we need to be fair and not push them to
choose between terrorism and tyranny, or between
terrorism and sectarian discrimination. We cannot win
the war on terror if peoples are not satisfied that it is
their war and not a war to stabilize a regime that is
oppressing them.
The Syrian people have suffered from tyranny and
terrorism. The international community did not heed
the cries for help of the Iraqi people, who have been the
first victims of terrorism in Iraq. But those who fought
terrorism and defeated it found themselves prone
to marginalization and abuse by terrorist sectarian
militias. It is therefore imperative to persuade the Iraqi
people that they will not pay the a thousandfold price,
and that when they defend their homeland they are
merely defending their rights, dignity and freedoms,
which must be guaranteed. This is what the majority
of the Syrian people must be persuaded of after being
soaked in the blood spilled by the Syrian regime for
daring to demand freedom and dignity.
In this context, the international community
needs to stand firmly by brotherly Iraq in confronting
terrorism and ending its ordeal. Preserving its
sovereignty, territorial integrity and the diversity of
its sects can be achieved only by defusing sectarian
conflict and achieving Iraqi reconciliation that lays the
foundations for a society free from sectarian and ethnic
conflicts, with the participation of all political forces,
without exclusion.
In this context, the international community must
also assist fraternal Libya in ending its current ordeal
by making a serious effort to respect the will of the
Libyan people and meet their legitimate aspirations
for security and stability through reconciliation and
the inclusion of all Libyan factions. From this rostrum,
I call on all Libyan political forces to follow the path
of national dialogue and to hammer out a formula for
governance that meets the aspirations of the Libyan
people, who have sacrificed so much for their freedom.
On this occasion, I cannot but hail the nascent
Tunisian experience, which augurs well for our future
and owes its progress to the awareness and unity of the
Tunisians and their insistence on the success of their
experiment, despite continuous attempts by Powers that
do not want pluralism to succeed in our region. Another
successful instance of the peaceful transfer of power
has been seen in Yemen. We were encouraged by the
outcome of the national dialogue under the auspices of
the United Nations and with the support of the Security
Council, which adopted a resolution emphasizing
commitment to the process and condemning those
undermining its implementation.
But it would seem that there are forces who are
joining ranks in an attempt to thwart that experiment.
Some oppose any change at all and would prefer to turn
back the hands of the clock; others prefer sectarian
conflict and sectarian and factional interests over
justice and good governance for Yemen. Experience
has shown that the use of violence and political action
from a factional or sectarian perspective does not lead
to a change towards a better system of governance, but
poses a threat to the political entity itself.
We call on our Yemeni brothers to preserve the
achievements of the young people of Yemen, and
those of national dialogue and wisdom, and not to
abandon what they have accomplished. They must not
allow anyone to drag them onto the path of sectarian
violence. We also call on the United Nations to work
on implementing its decisions on the achievements of
the national dialogue, including rebuilding the army so
that it can defend the legitimate institutions and stop
the phenomenon of armed militias in Yemen. It has
become clear that such forces would lead to civil strife
and derail the process of peaceful transition.
Many countries of the world still suffer from
poverty and face difficulties in promoting their
development at the desired pace. This holds true for the
new post-2015 sustainable development goals, which
constitute a common vision for future generations. I
stress that the State of Qatar will pursue its efforts to
build a partnership with the United Nations in order
to adopt a post-2015 development plan that meets the
aspirations of the peoples of all countries and regional
blocs.
I would also like to note that the State of Qatar
has made progress in its national development plans
and strengthened its regional and global partnerships,
as confirmed by the United Nations 2014 Human
Development Index. The State of Qatar has been
ranked thirty-first globally, and today we continue the
implementation of the comprehensive national strategy
for human development based on the Qatar Vision 2030,
aimed at achieving development in various fields.
The State of Qatar will pursue its active policy
of providing a space for dialogue in areas of conflict
and for mediation between the various parties, as we
believe in solving conflicts by peaceful means and
have established a tradition of peaceful mediation. We
will continue to provide a platform for dialogue among
political currents, cultures and religions.
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate the
commitment of the State of Qatar to work with the
United Nations to address common challenges and
achieve the goals we all seek.