It
gives me pleasure at the outset to congratulate you,
Madam President, on your election to the presidency of
the General Assembly at its sixty-first session. I wish
you every success in your endeavours. I should also
like to thank your predecessor, Mr. Jan Eliasson, for
his efforts during the Assembly’s sixtieth session. Our
thanks also go to Mr. Kofi Annan, who has been
working to strengthen the role of the United Nations.
During the September 2005 Summit, the
international community reaffirmed its commitment to
the global partnership for development in order to
achieve internationally agreed development objectives.
The United Nations system remains one of the most
important pillars of international support for that
partnership. I wish to recall here that the State of Qatar
has always been a supportive partner in development
efforts, particularly in combating poverty, because all
that has positive results for stability and international
peace and security.
In 2001 Qatar hosted the Fourth Ministerial
Conference of the World Trade Organization, which
culminated in the Doha Ministerial Declaration. It also
hosted the South Summit in 2005, in which His
Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Emir of
the State of Qatar, launched his initiative to establish
the South’s Fund for Development and Humanitarian
Assistance. Moreover, His Highness reaffirmed Qatar’s
commitment to meet the internationally agreed official
development assistance target relative to its gross
national product. His Highness also offered to host the
first Review Conference of the International
Conference on Financing for Development. I am
pleased to note that the State of Qatar will be hosting
the Sixth International Conference of New or Restored
Democracies, scheduled for 30 October to 1 November
this year.
I should also like to recall here that Qatar has
extended emergency and disaster relief assistance and
made many contributions to the various United Nations
funds and programmes.
We must work to strengthen the role of the United
Nations and revitalize and support its institutions so
that they can carry out the tasks entrusted to them in
different parts of the world. However, if the
Organization is to discharge its role in full, its Charter
must be adhered to and respected. Furthermore, an
agreement must be reached on a new formula to reform
the Security Council and update its working methods.
The General Assembly must be allowed to play its role
in the maintenance of international peace and security
alongside the Security Council.
We were shocked and astonished at the
disproportionate Israeli response against fraternal
Lebanon, which killed hundreds of innocent civilians,
totally decimated its infrastructure and left scores of
Lebanese towns and villages in ruins. It has also
displaced one quarter of Lebanon’s population, which
is indeed a full-scale war crime.
The Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian
question must be accorded top priority, for which a
comprehensive, permanent and just solution is urgently
needed. The Palestinian question is an example of
suffering visited upon a people whose legitimate rights
were denied, a question that has been on the agendas of
27 06-52879
the Security Council and the General Assembly for
more than 50 years. Therefore the international
community must review its position towards a
fundamental issue that it has left unresolved for more
than half a century, thus compounding the tragedy of
the Palestinian people.
Compelling Israel to implement United Nations
resolutions is a collective duty that we must all fulfil so
that international legitimacy will not be branded as
selective. The Palestinian people must be enabled to
exercise their right to self-determination and to
establish their independent State with Jerusalem as its
capital.
A comprehensive, peaceful settlement of the
Arab-Israeli conflict should also be achieved, on the
basis of Israel’s withdrawal from all the territories it
occupied in 1967, including the Syrian Golan and the
Lebanese Sheba’a farms. We also stress that the
guarantee of permanent peace, security and stability in
the region lies in making the Middle East a zone free
from all weapons of mass destruction without any
exceptions.
The difficult situation in fraternal Iraq requires
our cooperation in order to help it overcome this
untenable situation and its repercussions. We have
continuously reaffirmed our commitment to the unity
and sovereignty of Iraq, to the rights of Iraqis to live in
dignity and freedom and to rebuild their country, and
for Iraq to regain its well-deserved place in the region
and among the family of nations.
We want to pay tribute to the Government of the
Sudan, which after tireless efforts has succeeded in
establishing peace in the south of the country. It
continues its sincere efforts to achieve security and
stability in different parts of the country. We fully
support those efforts and look forward to more support
from the international community to fraternal Sudan in
order to preserve its unity and territorial integrity.
We also support ongoing efforts by the League of
Arab States to achieve national reconciliation in
fraternal Somalia and to restore the rule of law in that
country. We call upon the international community to
support those efforts so that stability and security can
be restored to Somalia.
We reaffirm the important role of the United
Nations and the need to enhance it so that it can put
international relations on a solid foundation of
understanding and common interests. We also stress the
importance of resolving conflicts and disputes by
peaceful means and of cooperation among all nations
to end violence and combat terrorism. We must avoid
squandering our resources and wasting our energies on
wars and conflicts. Instead, we should channel them
towards development and progress. We look forward to
a new world governed by the principles of justice,
equality, freedom, democracy and peaceful coexistence
among its peoples, nations and civilizations.