Jordan

Permit me at the outset, Sir, to extend warm congratulations to Mr. Razali on the confidence shown in him by the international community in electing him President of the General Assembly at its fifty-first session. I take this opportunity to extend my best wishes to him and to the other members of the Bureau for success in directing the meetings of this session and in all endeavours to strengthen our Organization and promote peace in our world. I also congratulate Mr. Razali’s friendly country, Malaysia. I also take this opportunity to express my thanks and appreciation to his predecessor, Mr. Freitas do Amaral, and the former members of the Bureau for their effective stewardship of the fiftieth session. I also wish to express our gratitude to the Secretary- General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, for the dedicated efforts he has sincerely and honestly made to advance the Organization and to promote its humanitarian mission of settling disputes between States by peaceful means. In conformity with the decision of the League of Arab States, Jordan supports the extension of the Secretary-General’s mandate for another term, in order to enable him to pursue his mission and efforts in the service of international peace and security and the reforms he has initiated in the organs and Secretariat of the Organization. The role of the United Nations and its specialized agencies in the protection of international peace and security and in enhancing and directing the world economy towards liberalization and integration are among the main reasons for my country’s devotion to the Organization and adherence to its Charter. In view of this, and out of our sense of responsibility and concern for the efficiency and relevance of the Organization, we appeal to all Member States to continue to support it, to fulfil their obligations to it consistently and to work to resolve its financial crisis. I assert my country’s firm position on the need to implement the necessary administrative reforms and restructure the Security Council. The structure of the Council no longer reflects the current balance of power. Any expansion of the permanent membership of the Council should take into account the increase in the number of developing countries and the growing economic power of certain industrial nations, such as Germany and Japan. We have seen many plans and proposals on this matter which the Security Council should carefully consider, such as the Italian plan. A review of the veto power enjoyed by the permanent members should reflect the democracy and transparency we seek. In this context, I must emphasize the need to review the question of economic sanctions, which neither distinguish between a political entity and its innocent unarmed civilian population, nor provide compensation to third States adversely affected by such sanctions. We must work together to create a durable formula. We also call for opening the membership of the United Nations to all peace-loving States, as stipulated in Article 4.1 of the Charter. This international Organization has made worthy peacekeeping efforts in many countries. It has made human sacrifices that would be unfair and unwise to ignore. Jordan is very proud to have been among the first countries participating in the peacekeeping forces in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere. In this regard, my country’s effective participation in the Implementation Force’s peacekeeping and peacemaking operation in Bosnia is noteworthy. 8 In this regard, the fraternal people of Bosnia must be congratulated on the Dayton Agreement and on the elections it has held. A special tribute should be paid to President Alija Izetbegovic´ for winning the presidential election. We are ready, along with other peace-loving countries, to help the people of Bosnia make the new democratic experiment a success, consolidate and rebuild the federal State and promote its reconstruction, development, sovereignty and stability. Before I move on to another international issue, I would like to congratulate the United Nations on opening the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty for signature. My country is proud to have been among the first countries to sponsor the draft resolution under which this Treaty was adopted and to have signed it. We hope that steps towards nuclear disarmament will continue and will encompass the Middle East region. We hope that negotiations will begin for the conclusion of a treaty in the very near future banning the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear and otherwise, so that a nuclear-weapon-free zone may be established in the Middle East. The peoples of our region have suffered the agonies of devastating wars over the past five decades, wars which have caused the deaths of tens of thousands, destroyed basic infrastructures and brought the people of our countries bloodshed, pain, deprivation, poverty and instability. Due to the allocation of resources to the war machine and the terrible arms race, their economies have gone into recession. Signs of hope, however, emerged for these people five years ago with the Madrid Peace Conference in October 1991 and the subsequent bilateral and multilateral negotiations between Arabs and Israelis. Palestinian hopes were revived with the 1993 Oslo agreement. The Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements that followed restored happiness and hope to millions of Palestinians, who saw in that agreement the beginning of the end of their pain, bloodshed and destroyed economy. They were newly optimistic about securing their right to self-determination within their own State, rebuilding their national economy, industry and infrastructure, which had been destroyed by wars, and the onset of peaceful trade relations with their neighbours in Jordan, Israel and other countries of the region. Hope was also rekindled by the peace treaty concluded between Jordan and Israel in October 1994 and the resulting bilateral agreements on the establishment of diplomatic and economic relations, bilateral and regional cooperation, the reconstruction of the region and the establishment of strong trade and economic relations between the two countries, to the benefit of their peoples and other peoples in the region, opening the way to comprehensive regional cooperation. Concrete progress was also made on the Syrian- Israeli and Lebanese-Israeli peace tracks. There were prospects for a Syrian-Israeli agreement based on the “land-for-peace” principle, providing for full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan in return for a peace agreement ending the state of war and paving the way for peaceful relations based on strong foundations of understanding and normal, peaceful coexistence. Current events and negative factors and measures in the occupied Arab territories — a return to the settlement- building policy; the violation of the sanctity of the holy places; the closure of the territories; the denial of work opportunities; the refusal to implement the agreements signed on the Palestinian-Israeli track; the postponement and impediment of self-government negotiations; the unilateral determination of the status of Jerusalem and of the self-government negotiations; the refusal to resume negotiations, suspended seven months ago, with Syria and Lebanon; and the refusal to return to the terms of reference and framework of the Madrid Peace Conference — have given rise to frustration among the peoples of the region, who are beginning to lose the rekindled hope to which I have referred. Despite the excessively negative slogans against peace used by the new Israeli Government during the electoral campaign, we in Jordan — the King, the leadership and the people — welcomed the new Administration and the newly-elected Prime Minister out of respect for the free will of the Israeli people and non- interference in their internal affairs. We called for the continuation of the comprehensive peace process in the region and pledged to utilize the peace treaty with Israel to establish such a comprehensive peace. We urged our neighbours, Syria and Lebanon, to deal with the new realities and the new Israeli Government positively and realistically. Our motto and position at the Arab Summit Conference held at Cairo last June was a call to extend more time and opportunity to the new Israeli Government to return to the peace process on the bases agreed upon at the Madrid Peace Conference: the “land-for-peace” formula and the implementation of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973) and 425 (1978). All the participants in the Madrid Peace Conference had believed that the success achieved on the Palestinian- Israeli track and the Jordanian-Israeli track had opened to 9 the peoples of the region, including the Israeli people, the door to a new life and a better future based on the principles of justice, peace for all, peaceful relations and trade. They had also believed that this success proved once again how misguided and wrong are obsolete principles such as that of achieving security through force and thus through the imposition of forced solutions. It also debunked the principle of occupying other people’s land by force to ensure one’s own security. Indeed, it has become clear that security can be ensured only through dialogue, peaceful coexistence, negotiations, mutual respect among peoples and free economic and trade relations, rather than through power politics and the imposition of forced solutions. Yet once again we are hearing certain nervous calls to revive the obsolete theory of security and the imposition of solutions by force. Amid the gloom that has begun to enshroud the peace process, there is still a ray of hope. It is up to us, both Arabs and Israelis, to keep it shining with a view to securing a better future for our children and our grandchildren. For if, God forbid, we allowed this hope to become lost, a renewed cycle of violence, instability, tension, terrorism and extremism would prevail in the region, as shown by the recent bloody violence. At the Cairo summit, all Arab Governments expressed for the first time their collective support and blessings for the peace process and proclaimed that peace is an irreversible strategic option. We have heard similar pledges from the new Israeli Government. It is our sincere hope that the United States and Russian co-sponsors of the peace process will intervene, and that international efforts will be made to put the peace process back on track, restore its previous vigour and impetus and put an end to all the obstacles that might impede or disrupt it. The war and destruction in the region and the peace process that followed it have been described as a series of missed opportunities; for in the past all of us have missed invaluable opportunities for peace. Now here we are again, about to return to that insane policy. By challenging the opponents of peace, President Arafat and the Palestinian leadership have demonstrated a serious and unambiguous desire to achieve a just, comprehensive and lasting peace. It is not wise to reward him by embarrassing him before the Palestinian people and placing him in an unenviable situation vis-à-vis the opponents of peace, who are betting on the failure of his policies and the failure of the peace process. Nor is it prudent to stipulate that Syria and Lebanon must return to the negotiating table without preconditions, as though the Madrid Conference and the painstaking and tough negotiations that followed had never taken place. Does this condition itself not constitute a precondition for the peace process? We all declared our intention to nurture the magnificent baby born at the Madrid Conference, whom we named “the peace process”. But then, we disagreed on the method to be followed in the baby’s upbringing. Let us return to working together, so as not to kill the baby in its cradle and along with it our peoples’ chances for the better life which shone on the horizon after decades of death and destruction. One of the most important factors for the credibility of the Middle East peace process is the improvement in the living conditions of the population through increased investment which has resulted in lowering the high unemployment rate. We in Jordan have taken numerous measures, enacted legislation and concluded agreements with a view to protecting and promoting investment. I regret that despite these reassuring measures and guarantees and the convening of two international economic summit conferences — in Casablanca in 1994 and in Amman in 1995 — the real outcome in terms of investment in the region has been disappointing. Apart from the increase in tourism that we noticed following the signing of the peace treaty, foreign industrial investment remains very low notwithstanding the many profitable projects put forward at the recent Amman economic conference. While private foreign companies may have an excuse for reluctance to invest, because of fears related to the regime’s history and political situation, the Governments of developed industrial countries have no excuse for their failure to provide their insurance companies with sufficient guarantees against investment risks to encourage companies to increase their investments. This is particularly true since the increased profitability of these companies’ investment projects and the resulting higher incomes in the recipient developing countries would benefit the economies of the developed industrial countries as well. In this regard, we have high hopes for the successful conclusion of the fourth economic summit, to be held in Cairo next November. This will provide another opportunity for foreign investors to contribute to the region’s development and to the consolidation of peace — quite apart from the benefits they and the economies of countries are bound to reap. 10 One of the region’s biggest and most complex problems is that of Palestinian refugees; its settlement has been deferred to the final status negotiations. It is regrettable that the international community has not yet given this important political and humanitarian problem the attention, understanding and assistance it deserves. Every year we receive the report of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, in which he describes the Agency’s budget deficit and the consequent need to reduce the level of services provided to the refugees. We urge the wealthy industrial States to give this matter their fullest attention and to increase their contribution in order to ensure the survival of this temporary solution to the major humanitarian problems that affect over 3.5 million Palestinian refugees, including some 1.5 million who live in Jordan. The Government of Jordan, despite its limited resources, is compelled to provide assistance and relief worth approximately $300 million annually. It is necessary to provide support for the Agency’s budget to enable it to continue its work effectively, pending a final solution of the refugee problem on the basis of United Nations resolutions providing for their repatriation or compensation. As long as it remains without a substantive and effective solution, this problem will continue to constitute a time bomb — forgive me for using this term to indicate the magnitude of this problem — for the peace process, in view of its significant humanitarian and political dimensions. The subject of peace in the Middle East leads us to demand speedy implementation of the recent agreement between Iraq and the United Nations for a partial lifting of the embargo on the sale of Iraqi oil in order to provide food and medicine to the brotherly people of Iraq, who have suffered, and continue to suffer, from the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. These sanctions have punished them but have not affected their leaders. We call upon the Government of Iraq to implement United Nations resolutions; respect the sovereignty, independence and freedom of neighbouring States; cooperate with the United Nations Special Commission; cooperate in the release of Kuwaiti prisoners of war held in Iraq; respect human rights; and establish a democratic system in which the rights of all its communities are respected. At the same time, we call for the lifting of the economic sanctions that are punishing the people of Iraq. We also call for respect for Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and non-interference in its internal affairs. We reject any attempts aimed at dividing Iraq, such as the recently proposed “safe areas” scheme. It is also our hope that the United Arab Emirates will be able to arrive at a peaceful solution enabling it to regain its three Gulf islands occupied by Iran. We call for non-interference in the internal affairs of Bahrain and extend our support to that sister country, at a time when it is the target of terrorism. We call upon Eritrea to find a peaceful solution to the question of its withdrawal from the Yemeni Huneish islands in response to Yemen’s peaceful efforts, in order to maintain good-neighbourly relations and in gratitude for Yemen’s assistance to Eritrea in attaining its independence and sovereignty. We call for a just and speedy solution to the Lockerbie problem, and for a positive response to the initiatives and efforts of the League of Arab States, the Organization of African Unity, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which would ensure the trial and punishment of the perpetrators of that heinous terrorist act without punishing all the people of Libya. My country supports international efforts to combat international terrorism. Hence our active participation at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, held earlier this year at the invitation of our sister country, the Arab Republic of Egypt, to explore the most effective means of international cooperation in this regard. We also support the decisions of the latest summit meeting of the Group of Seven industrial Powers aimed at fighting terrorism and punishing its perpetrators, as terrorism has become a dangerous international phenomenon that has taken the lives of many innocent people, destroyed the infrastructure of many countries, disrupted tourism and the free movement of innocent people and defamed national liberation and independence movements. We therefore support bilateral, regional and international cooperation to combat this ugly and destructive phenomenon. Today the world stands on the threshold of a new century, only three years away. That historic occasion must not pass without our pondering and studying the events of the twentieth century in preparation for the coming twenty-first century. We should benefit from the lessons we have learned and the events we have witnessed in order to make the next century a safer, more secure, stable and developed one for future generations. An idea worthy of exploration and careful examination in this regard is that of holding, at the outset of the new century, a special session of the General Assembly at the Heads of State level, to prepare for a new world order in whose shaping all States, large and small, developed and developing, would participate. This is only an idea which could be further elaborated and considered. As the representative of a developing country, it concerns me that despite the great progress achieved in the areas of disarmament and the resolution of global security problems, there has been no resolution of the problem of the economic security of the developing States. The gap between the developed and developing countries in the areas of income and technology is growing. Small developing countries will not be able to find solutions in the foreseeable future to their heavy burden of persistent indebtedness. It is both disastrous and painful that many developing countries, such as my country, Jordan, give their full efforts to consolidate and develop their democratic systems, orient their economies towards privatization, reform their economic systems, redress their budgetary and balance-of-payment deficits, fully cooperate with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and make concrete strides in this respect, and yet find themselves, after their people have devoted all their resources, capabilities and productivity to servicing and repaying their burdensome debts, still striving breathlessly to catch up with the developed countries, without hope of soon ridding themselves of this burden. Therefore, the shaping of and preparation for any new world order to be developed must consider the important question of the economic security of the developing countries. We now live in a world where distances between its various places and economic markets have been reduced due to tremendous technological strides in the areas of transport and communications. This means that the development and well-being of the developing countries is an important part of the solution to the recession in the developed countries. The idea of holding a special session of the General Assembly to prepare for a new world economic order could be the subject of a draft resolution which I hope will be brought before this Assembly for consideration.