Tunisia

Allow me to begin by expressing my warmest congratulations to the President upon his election. We are confident that his experience, know-how and broad understanding of international issues will be invaluable in carrying out the noble mission that has been entrusted to him and will provide the best possible assurance of the success of this session. His election to the presidency reflects the very special respect the international community has for his friendly country, Ukraine, because of its wise policy, based on moderation and a sense of proportion and also because of the efforts it is making to consolidate the principles of peace, justice and cooperation as the foundation of relations between States. I also wish to express our warmest thanks and gratitude to last year's President, His Excellency Mr. Razali Ismail, who throughout his term in office distinguished himself by the dedication and loyalty with which he carried out his functions, playing a remarkable role in the reform of the United Nations and its restructuring and adaptation to the changes occurring in the world, and in preparing it to enter the twenty-first century with greater efficiency. Reform of the United Nations and its restructuring are undoubtedly in the forefront of the issues on this session's agenda, particularly since Secretary-General Kofi Annan has kept the promise he made when he took office and has submitted a report on reform of the Organization that contains numerous measures and recommendations that are important for the Organization's future. It is with pleasure that I pay tribute to Secretary-General Kofi Annan for all the initiatives he has taken and the bold proposals he has made since taking office a short while ago with a view to reforming the Secretariat and rationalizing its functioning. Tunisia, which took an active part in the discussions held in the various working groups entrusted with the reform process, wishes to underscore the prime importance of the issues raised in the Secretary-General's report, both those that fall within his competence regarding coordination between the different Departments of the Secretariat and between the United Nations and its specialized agencies and those reforms that concern the United Nations activities and fall within the competence of the General Assembly, in connection with which the Assembly will adopt relevant resolutions. There is no doubt that the international community is motivated by a sincere will to give a powerful impetus to the reform process to enable the United Nations to accomplish the tasks provided for in the Charter, whether with regard to achieving security and peace in the world or to establishing conditions for sustainable development, two closely related, complementary goals. In our view, the most important priority of the reform process is to focus on strengthening the United Nations role in achieving development and in reducing and eradicating poverty, mobilizing the means required so that developing countries can achieve economic and social development and meet the crucial challenges imposed upon them by globalization and by the market economy. Notwithstanding the well-being and prosperity that technological progress and globalization of the economy have brought to certain countries, while others have been excluded, the world's economy continues to suffer from imbalances that hinder growth in developing countries and endanger international stability. We consider it essential to give priority to these situations in United Nations programmes and activities in order to narrow the chasm that exists between States, give new impetus to international cooperation in the field of economic and social development and strengthen the United Nations capacity for effective and efficient action in this regard. Tunisia stresses the need to strengthen the role of the United Nations in the field of development in order to 19 consolidate the General Assembly's prerogatives with regard to preparing cooperation policies and monitoring their execution. The United Nations continues to be the ideal forum for this within the framework of the international community. That also requires that Member States honour their financial commitments to the United Nations in order to provide the necessary means required for successful reform, the realization of the United Nations various programmes and rational, judicious use of resources. In this connection Tunisia once again reaffirms its support for the restructuring of the Security Council to ensure a fairer representation of Member States and to guarantee the interests of developing countries within the framework of equality for all Member States, consecrating the spirit of the Charter and giving concrete expression to its principles. In this regard, my country would recall the legitimate claim of the African States, as expressed at the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit Meeting held at Tunis in June 1994 and reaffirmed at the recent OAU Summit at Harare, calling for the allocation of two permanent seats on the Security Council to be occupied by African States on a rotating basis. It is also important to continue to improve the working methods of the Security Council and to implement fully the procedures stipulated in the Council's rules of procedure to ensure the effective participation of United Nations Member States and their collective responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. The maintenance of international peace and security and the elimination of the hotbeds of tensions, conflicts and wars that still rage in many regions of the world are today, in addition to the problems of development, at the forefront of the international community's concerns, and they continue to require determined and consistent action by the United Nations. In this context, Tunisia emphasizes the importance of the role the United Nations must play with regard to the situation in the Middle East in the light of the dangerous developments that are taking place there. The United Nations has followed the Palestinian problem since the very beginning and has had a special responsibility to the Palestinian people from the adoption of the resolution on the partition of Palestine until the formulation of the basic principles of a pacific settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Tunisia has stood by the Palestinian people in their struggle to recover their legitimate rights and for 12 years was home to the Palestine Liberation Organization. It has followed, from a position of neutrality, the Middle East peace process and played, at the behest of its of President, a historic role in triggering that process. It has supported the process at every stage, beginning with the initial contacts between the conflicting parties, at the Madrid Conference, and in the Oslo, Washington and Cairo agreements. Tunisia was also a party to the multilateral negotiations. As such, Tunisia wishes here to express its profound concern and indignation at the obstruction of this process and at the freezing of the agreements that led up to it, as well as at the renewed dangers of conflict, violence and instability in the region. We denounce the Israeli Government's policy of fait accompli, its failure to respect the international agreements that have been signed and the unilateral measures it has taken in building colonies inside and outside Al Quds, destroying houses, confiscating identity cards, inflicting collective reprisals against the Palestinian people, seizing their financial assets, continuing to besiege them and taking all sorts of other arbitrary measures. We call emphatically for a return to the basic references that have been part of the peace process since its inception, particularly the principle of land for peace, and for respect of international legality on the basis of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973) and 425 (1978) and the relevant General Assembly resolutions. Furthermore, we call for the implementation of all the provisions of the agreement pertaining to the transition stage, including the second redeployment, the opening of a secure road between the West Bank and Gaza, the opening of the airport and the port, the release of prisoners and the beginning of the final status negotiations, in accordance with the agreed-upon schedule. The international community, particularly in the meetings of the Security Council and the three consecutive meetings of the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly, has already condemned the current Israeli Government's policy of building settlements in Al Quds and in the occupied Palestinian territories. This policy has greatly discouraged the Palestinian community and international opinion in general, particularly since it has given rise to acts of violence for which Israel bears sole responsibility, given the profound despair that has replaced the relief that had been felt throughout the entire region. Tunisia exhorts the international community, and especially the two sponsors of peace, to act expeditiously and firmly to save the peace and avert the dangers that 20 threaten the region so that the Palestinian people is able to recover its legitimate rights to the creation of an independent State on its own soil with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, and to ensure the restoration to Syria and Lebanon of the territories which Israel has occupied. We note with satisfaction the United States' resumption of efforts to save the peace process, notably the meeting held yesterday in New York between the parties concerned. We also welcome the efforts being made to restore confidence among the parties concerned with a view to helping them overcome the current crisis and achieve an equitable settlement of the Palestinian problem and the Arab-Israeli conflict as a whole. We feel that actions undertaken to date to mitigate the risks of tension and conflict in the region remain far below what we had hoped. Tunisia regrets the deterioration of the current financial situation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which hinders its mission to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people. While reaffirming the international community's responsibility for the question of Palestinian refugees, we urge it to continue to provide assistance to UNRWA in order to allow it to carry out its mandate fully and resume its work. We urge all donors countries to maintain and honour their financial commitment and to increase their contribution to the Agency budget, taking into account the natural growth in the number of Palestinian refugees, in order to allow the Agency to overcome its severe financial crisis. Tunisia's awareness of the importance in today's world of economic and geographic groupings to meeting the challenges of globalization and the changes we are currently witnessing encourages us to be firm and consistent in pursuing our efforts to complete the construction of the Arab Maghreb Union. The Union represents a particular claim made by the peoples of our region and one of the goals that we, together with the leaders of our brother Maghreb countries, are striving to attain. This strategic option for the future of the peoples of the region and their cooperation with their immediate environment is strengthened by the efforts our country is making, under the impetus of President Ben Ali, to construct a Euro-Mediterranean area that will serve as a framework for cooperation among the Mediterranean riparian countries, for solidarity among their peoples and for cultural and social dialogue in the context of the noble values and principles in which we all believe. Our country has already assumed a distinctive role in ensuring the success of the various meetings and conferences held to this end, from the preparatory meeting of the region's Ministers for Foreign Affairs held in Tabarka, Tunisia, to the Barcelona conference and the meetings that followed. Our country gave concrete expression to this option in 1995 by signing an association agreement with the European Union. We believe that it has become imperative to respond favourably to the willingness of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to settle the Lockerbie question in a fair and honourable manner in the framework of proposals made by the League of Arab States, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Non-Aligned Movement. These proposals can help to achieve a peaceful solution based on international legality and thereby hasten the end of the suffering being endured by the brother Libyan people under the embargo. They would also strengthen stability in that part of the Mediterranean. We also take this opportunity to call for an end to the suffering that has been inflicted upon the Iraqi people for a number of years now. We hope that relations among the States of the Gulf region will be based on respect for the sovereignty of all the States of the region, their territorial integrity and the inviolability of their borders, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the Security Council. In this context, Tunisia once again reaffirms its solidarity with the United Arab Emirates in the peaceful efforts they are making to recover the islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa. The success of the United Nations in achieving international peace and security does not rest only on peacekeeping operations, preventive diplomacy and the peaceful settlement of conflict. It also requires progress and accomplishments in the field of disarmament. Despite the end of the cold war and the achievement of a number of positive results, particularly in limiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, these weapons — particularly nuclear weapons — continue seriously to threaten all mankind. Tunisia, which has ratified all the international conventions on the subject, reiterates its appeals for the establishment of a denuclearized zone, free of all weapons of mass destruction, in the Middle East. This appeal has been supported by the accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of all the countries of the region with the exception of Israel, which has neither ratified the Treaty nor placed its nuclear facilities 21 under the system of international controls, thereby endangering the security and integrity of the entire region. There are many regions of the world that continue to be torn by war and conflict and whose populations are confronted with tragic situations as a result of instability, insecurity, famine and destitution. We nonetheless note with satisfaction that, despite the persistence of hotbeds of tension and instability in some of these regions, the African continent is beginning truly to awaken to the possibility of restored security and renewed economic growth in a number of its regions and countries. Tunisia welcomes the development of the situation in Africa and the sincere determination of member countries of the Organization of African Unity to pursue the reforms that have been undertaken to restructure economies and consolidate democracy. At the same time, my country reiterates the appeal made by President Ben Ali many times to the international community for increased attention to be paid to the continent's problems in order to eradicate once and for all the hotbeds of tension that remain in Africa, so that security and stability may be instituted throughout the continent, enabling all its peoples to devote themselves to work and to economic development. In this context, the role to be played by the United Nations in assisting the countries concerned to overcome these difficulties and challenges assumes primary importance. It is a role that should be seen in the context of the prime responsibility that our international Organization assumes in preserving peace and security and in confirming the fact that the United Nations is irreplaceable in these endeavours. However, this in no way minimizes the importance that should be given to the action of regional organizations, whose role has grown in recent years, making their influence visible and palpable. Our country emphasizes the importance of the role devoted to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, which was set up by the Organization of African Unity for all issues related to security and stability on the African continent. This clearly does not prevent us from supporting any international initiative that is consistent with this essential principle and that reinforces African efforts to preserve peace and security on our continent. We applaud the efforts of the United Nations Secretariat to stimulate cooperation and to promote consultation with the Organization of African Unity to strengthen its capacity for preventing conflicts and maintaining peace. Numerous African States, including Tunisia, have declared their willingness to participate in the standby arrangements for peacekeeping, thereby demonstrating their determination to contribute to United Nations efforts to improve the methods of organizing United Nations peacekeeping operations. There is no doubt that the promotion of international cooperation, particularly in the field of training and logistics, can ensure the success of the standby forces, thereby making it the basic formula for the establishment of United Nations peacekeeping forces. In this regard, we reaffirm Tunisia's unswerving desire to make a real contribution to the efforts of the United Nations to preserve international peace and security. Our country has contributed both military and civilian contingents to many United Nations peacekeeping operations — from the Congo in the early 1960s to other similar operations in a number of African countries; in Cambodia; in Bosnia and Herzegovina; in Croatia; and recently in Haiti — thus giving concrete evidence of its faith in international action and cooperation carried out by the Organization. Tunisia will continue to support and assist United Nations peacekeeping operations whenever necessary. In order to meet the challenges generated by globalization and openness in the world economy, Tunisia has introduced substantial and coherent reforms in the political, economic and social fields to ensure society's equilibrium and integrity and the solidarity of its members, thereby eliminating the negative factors that could hinder this: exclusion, neglect of the human aspect in development, and the creation of chasms between social categories resulting from disparate levels of development within a given society. We are convinced that global development can be achieved only when the vulnerable sectors of society have been assured the conditions for integration with economic dynamics. This requires uprooting the causes of poverty, destitution and marginalization, which is consistent with the commitment to promote solidarity and mutual assistance between the members of society on the national level, and efforts being made in that direction on the international level. The fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations afforded the leaders of Member countries an opportunity to confirm their determination to revitalize the role of the United Nations and to confer upon its actions greater dynamism at a time when problems of security, 22 development and environment multiply, requiring joint efforts and shared determination to face them with a view to achieving progress, prosperity and well-being for all. The success of the United Nations remains contingent upon action in accordance with the goals and principles enshrined in its Charter. It is also conditioned by the commitment of all countries, large and small, to implement decisions which uphold the values of liberty, dignity and justice. In so doing we will respond to the aspirations of our peoples who are the essential guarantors of the United Nations vitality and of its capacity for renewal, durability and ability to meet the challenges which humanity will confront during the next century.