Lithuania

Allow me to begin by congratulating you, Sir, on your election to your honourable post. You may count on our full support and dedication to your goals. You, Sir, have inherited the legacy of the outgoing President, Ambassador Razali Ismail, which we can build on: friendly atmosphere, lively debates, productive spirit, strong desire for change and reform, and, last but not least, brilliant management of the Assembly’s work. My Government congratulates Ambassador Razali on his outstanding performance. I come from a country that is in the midst of comprehensive reforms. Top-to-bottom institutional changes have reshaped our society from its very roots, establishing a commonly accepted democratic way of life. Radical changes involved in introducing a market economy have borne fruit. Today, our democracy and market economy are inextricably linked with the new security and economic framework of a united Europe. Our reform experience demonstrates that the courage to grasp the moment — to respond rapidly if and when the changing situation requires — a key for success. We have this key in our hands, and we need the determination to use it. With the end of the cold war, the fall of the bipolar system and the failure of power politics have given us a new chance to look deeper into the core of the United Nations and to reshape it in line with the needs and expectations of its Member States and for the benefit of all. The picture of the road ahead is visible. We want this session of the General Assembly to be dominated by the programme of reforms. Lithuania’s Government supports the Secretary-General’s reform initiative, which is expected to spur most fundamental changes. We are confident that the Secretary-General will successfully implement that part of his programme which falls within his own responsibility. It is unlikely that everyone will be happy about every part of the proposed reforms. We, the Member States, have to see the Secretary-General’s proposals in their entirety, and, rising above narrow national interests, find a compromise on every step that brings us closer to a more focused, more efficient, more transparent and more democratic United Nations. Lithuania is ready to play an active part in achieving agreement on a United Nations structure that will reflect the nature of the United Nations mandate and its core functions: maintenance of peace and security, sustainable development and 8 promotion of human rights, humanitarian assistance, and social and economic progress. They should be placed within a strict time-frame. Otherwise, lack of dynamics in the negotiation process will cause a loss of direction. What is of special concern to us is that the financial difficulties of the Organization are affecting its performance and endanger the progress of reforms. Lithuania will fulfil its financial obligations to the United Nations and urges other States to do so. At the same time, United Nations financing must reflect a State’s capacity to pay. The scheme of limits has to be removed from the new scale of assessments that is to be negotiated this autumn. Lithuania continues to support the package of comprehensive proposals put forward by the European Union designed to put the Organization on a sound and predictable financial footing. Although the reform of the Security Council started as a separate process, it is now part of the entire package of United Nations reform. It was inspired by the general acknowledgement that the time had come for the Council to reflect new realities in world politics. Today we have more nations able and willing to serve permanently on the Security Council than in the days of its inception. Two such States are Germany and Japan. Asia, Africa and Latin America, too, legitimately aspire to have new permanent seats. And there are more States whose contributions to the goals of the United Nations point to the need for greater appreciation and better accommodation of their interests. We want a comprehensive reform of the Council whereby the number of non-permanent seats increases as well. The Group of Eastern European States, whose number has more than doubled over the past few years, deserves at least one additional seat. Our position on this is very firm. We also need a more transparent and democratic Security Council. But, most important, the reform should continue to progress. This year’s discussions have been productive, thanks to the efforts of the former President of the General Assembly, Ambassador Razali. I hope the process will retain its vigour. In the post-confrontation era, there are far too many weapons around the world. Fortunately, today there are more tools to control the spread of the most deadly weapons. Last year we adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty — a major breakthrough in nuclear disarmament, which is feasible when pursued in consecutive steps. The next step should be to ban the spread of fissile material for nuclear warheads. The world’s attention has been captured by the negotiations in Oslo on the agreement to ban one of the most inhumane weapons: anti-personnel landmines. We support these efforts, which require profound rethinking of national defence strategies in many countries, including Lithuania. Confidence-building measures and security cooperation will help humanitarian concerns reign over military purposes. We have faith in regional and bilateral efforts to disarm. Europe has set out on the path of toughening the requirements for the stationing of conventional forces, through the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. We support this process and believe that it can be a model for other regions. Even though the total number of peacekeeping operations and their average size have been reduced in recent years, peacekeeping is still the key instrument available to the United Nations in discharging its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Together with Estonia and Latvia, and with Poland, Lithuania is developing joint peacekeeping units. Apart from its genuine objective of contributing to United Nations goals, this exercise is, in itself, a testimony to full understanding and cooperation among the neighbouring countries of our region. In recent years we have witnessed an increase in the role and functions of international civilian police in peacekeeping operations. The civilian police forces can play a major role, through assistance to local police forces, in rebuilding national police and judicial systems, in restoring civil order, in supporting the rule of law and in facilitating national reconciliation. The need for assistance from international civilian police is likely to increase. It can be met by properly functioning United Nations standby arrangements, which are designed to expand the rapid-deployment capacity of the Organization. Lithuania has decided to join the United Nations system of standby arrangements for peacekeeping operations. Later today, I shall submit to the Secretary-General a detailed description of our permanently available contribution, including well-trained police officers. Nations around the world are being challenged by certain phenomena which know no boundaries and which can be tackled only by joint action. Fighting international crime, drug trafficking and terrorism and ensuring environmental protection and humanitarian aid are among such challenges. 9 Lithuania wholeheartedly supports the Secretary- General’s reform effort to strengthen, through the United Nations entities in Vienna, the Organization’s capacity coherently and systematically to address threats to the stability and development of society created by transnational crime in all its manifestations. For its part, the Government of Lithuania is determined to enhance regional structures combating transnational organized crime as well as fully to implement bilateral, regional and multilateral agreements in this area. We also look forward to the special session of the General Assembly in 1998, which should enable the international community to develop new and improved strategies to address the problem of illicit narcotic drugs. Although the nineteenth special session of the General Assembly was not a milestone of success and ended with few commitments, we strongly believe that the political will demonstrated by the presence of so many Heads of State and Government will be translated into action. The next occasion to demonstrate the seriousness of our intentions to protect the environment and to agree on specific targets for reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, which were not realized at the special session, will be the third session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held in Kyoto, Japan, this December. The fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will afford a great occasion to see what has been done and what can be done about the protection of and respect for basic international human rights. We welcome the appointment of Mrs. Mary Robinson as the High Commissioner for Human Rights and express our support for the structural reforms of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Centre for Human Rights. Internal restructuring of the United Nations human rights organs should go hand in hand with close cooperation in human rights issues between the United Nations and such regional arrangements as the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and others. Illegal migration and trafficking in migrants threaten stability in Central and Eastern Europe. We believe that treaties on readmission between the States of the region could be a key instrument against these threats. Lithuania urges the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States that have not yet done so to accede to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol and to further strengthen national institutions responsible for the management of migration flows. We believe in a regional approach to regional issues. We praise the United Nations reliance on regional organizations. The Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe is a good example of what a regional institution with a limited budget can do rather than placing the burden on the United Nations. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is another good example. The record of the two organizations in the former Yugoslavia is much better than what could have been achieved had the United Nations alone dealt with the war. Along with other measures towards a more consolidated peace, good-neighbourly relations have become vital for regional security and stability. We have done our utmost to establish and maintain friendly relations with our neighbours, while simultaneously taking practical steps towards integration into the European Union and NATO. The accession of Lithuania to European and transatlantic institutions will have a significant impact on lasting security and stability. Yesterday the Russian Foreign Minister, Mr. Primakov, proposed a different security model of our region. However, creating a substitute for transatlantic integration is not in line with our vision. The international Vilnius conference entitled, “Coexistence of Nations and Good Neighbourhood Relations — A Guarantee of Security and Stability in Europe”, for which Lithuanian and Polish Presidents Algirdas Brazauskas and Aleksander Kwasniewski acted as hosts in September of this year and which was attended by 12 Heads of State and Government, received joint greetings from the Presidents of Germany and France, Roman Herzog and Jacques Chirac. They wrote: "It is time to foster a culture of cooperation and dialogue all over Europe and to harness the political energies of our peoples to bring about reconciliation and understanding ... Only in a spirit of unity, community, friendship and good- neighbourly relations, as well as mutual understanding, will we be able to build the future of our continent." Here at the United Nations, I am tempted to quote this sentence, but with the last word, "continent," in the plural.