Syrian Arab Republic

It gives me great pleasure on behalf of the delegation of the Syrian Arab Republic to congratulate Ambassador Insanally on his election to the presidency of the General Assembly at its forty-eighth session. I take this opportunity also to commend the role of his friendly country in the Non-Aligned Movement and the positive contribution to the United Nations made by the friendly countries of Latin America. I should also like on this occasion to voice our esteem to the President of the Assembly at its forty-seventh session, Mr. Stoyan Ganev, for the success he achieved during that session. We extend to him and to the friendly country of Bulgaria all best wishes for progress and prosperity. I wish also to welcome the new Member States that have joined our international Organization. It is our hope that they will make a contribution to the work of the United Nations with their active input. The end of the cold war has faced the international community with immense challenges and substantive questions most of which have remained without satisfactory answers while others have been left to the judgement of history and to the vagaries of time. It has become clear to many people in various parts of the world that facing up to these new challenges has not been an easy task for any individual country, regardless of its power or wisdom. The international climate has been rendered yet more complex and difficult by the reactions of those who have considered themselves to be the victors of the cold war. Their reactions have reflected their narrow short-term interests rather than the elements of the new reality which would have served better both their long-term interests and those of other countries - or which, in the very least, would not have done harm to those interests. This is one of the basic reasons which, to date, have prevented the emergence of a new world order. It was not reasonable to expect the countries and peoples of the world to support a system in which they have no say and from which they have no tangible expectations. This might explain why from one day to the next and year after year there has been less talk and lower expectations of the emergence of a new world order on the ruins of the old order. On today’s international scene we see little construction and few new breakthroughs; we see many ruins, much chaos and numerous unanswered questions. Has the world of today become more secure and stable? Have the causes of social tension and the many forms of regional conflict receded? Has the number of refugees and displaced persons decreased? And has the life of ordinary people in the South, and even in the North, grown more prosperous or comfortable? These are legitimate questions, but detailing the answers before this Assembly will not be a source of joy or comfort to many of us, especially in view of conflagrations in various parts of the world which warn of increased human suffering, ranging from killing and deportation to "ethnic cleansing", and real hunger. Of such things, world public opinion knows but very little. Suffice it to say that the number of conflicts which figure on the agenda of the United Nations is far smaller than those which are queuing up in the wings. When we say this, however, we do not wish to give the impression, by such a graphic objective description of the new international situation, that the past was better than the present. Far from it. For such is not the logic of my country, Syria. Nor is it the logic of life, itself which, we believe, tends to move towards the better, inevitably and as a matter of necessity, even if it sometimes stumbles here and there or appears to be static at certain times. Our real aim in describing the post-cold-war international situation is to attempt a serious assessment that, we truly believe, we share with many other countries which aspire to correct the course of international relations in both the political and the economic spheres, in order to make them more democratic and equitable. In this context, we find no better framework than the United Nations to promote international dialogue and cooperation. In order for such dialogue to have positive and fruitful results in the interest of all concerned, it is necessary to introduce democratic reforms that would restructure the decision-making process in the Organization so that it may reflect the views of the majority. It is not reasonable, for instance, to allow the United Nations machinery to be manipulated, sometimes, in order to intervene in the internal 18 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session affairs of countries under one pretext or another, before the Member States themselves are given the chance to introduce the necessary reforms that would restructure the United Nations in such a way as to guarantee equitable representation in its main organs and prevent the use of selectivity and double standards in addressing the issues that are of vital importance to Member States. But how can the majority of Member States expect that such needed reforms of the structure of the United Nations would be introduced at a time when some countries that pride in ending the cold war resort to launching covert and overt cold wars against countries which would preserve their independence and stand up for their national sovereignty? We feel it is our duty to draw attention to the fact that failure to introduce the required reforms will render the United Nations incapable of addressing the regional conflicts that multiply daily. It is to be feared is that the important role of this international Organization might change in the course of time to one of dealing with the problems of tens of thousands of United Nations soldiers entrusted with the mission of preserving a lost peace. This would drain the Organization’s resources and distract it from the many tasks with which it is entrusted. The multifarious feelings of concern prevailing among most peoples in the world, particularly in developing countries, are deeper than might at first be apparent. We, as Arabs and Muslims, might well have become more sensitive than others recently regarding what seems to be designed to undermine our interests and distort our history, which, during its most glorious phase, was never racial or aggressive towards other peoples and religions. Rather, it was humane and civilized, as all objective Western historians attest. We have the right to wonder about the reasons behind the ongoing unjust campaign against the Arabs and Muslims, who are slandered merely because some individuals have allegedly committed a terrorist act against Western targets, while not a word is uttered against those who are truly responsible for terroristic acts against thousands of Arab victims both in the occupied territories and southern Lebanon. The time has indeed come for an awakening of the Western conscience and for addressing objectively the sensitive issues which affect the dignity of peoples and the sovereignty of States. The objectivity of the strong cannot possibly be interpreted or understood, by any ethical standard, as a concession offered to the other party. Rather it often promotes the strong’s status and prestige. It is well known to everyone in the world that the Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the oldest, most complex and most dangerous conflicts in the world. That is why the United Nations has been seized of it since it first started. It is also no secret to anyone who follows developments in the region that Syria, under the leadership of President Hafez al Assad, maintained for 20 years its deeply rooted belief in the necessity of establishing a just and comprehensive peace in the region on the basis of United Nations resolutions and international legality. Although many peace initiatives were put forward during the 1970s and 1980s in an attempt to address the Arab-Israeli conflict, Syria objected to those initiatives only because the solutions they proposed lacked comprehensiveness and because they ignored participation by the Palestinians and lacked the guarantees that would safeguard their national rights. Once it received American guarantees for the participation of the Palestinians and a comprehensive solution on all fronts in accordance with Security Council resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973) and 425 (1978) and the land-for-peace formula, Syria has played a positive and fundamental role in the long and arduous negotiations with the United States over the convening of a peace Conference in Madrid. By responding positively to the American initiative, Syria, as the whole world has acknowledged, made the convening of a peace Conference possible. In so doing, Syria acted on the basic of its deep conviction that, or order for peace to be acceptable to our peoples, it has to be a just, comprehensive peace that would result in returning return all the Arab occupied territories and ensuring stability and security for the whole region. Without such elements, peace can neither survive nor become a true and stable peace in which and with which the people of the region can coexist. For any peace to receive broad and continued popular support, it must be honourable for us as well as for the others. The sons and mothers of our martyrs must feel that their dear ones who fell in the battlefields also contributed to establishing this peace on the basis of right and justice, and that with their sacrifices and blood they saved the nation from being forced to capitulate. Syria, which consistently believed in a just and comprehensive peace and demonstrated its earnestness and determination to reach such peace through the Washington talks and the constant coordination with the Arab parties and co-sponsors, is, in fact, more serious and keen in its efforts to achieve peace than those who deviated from the path of Arab coordination and through their unilateral signing opened the doors of the region to all kinds of options. Forty-eighth session - 4 October 1993 19 Unless serious and urgent efforts are made to achieve substantive and tangible progress on the Syrian and Lebanese tracks, peace might be the weakest of those options. We in Syria do not exaggerate the value of this Palestinian-Israeli agreement because each and every one of its provisions needs new negotiations. At the same time, we do not underestimate its probable repercussions, especially on the Palestinian arena, where it has created sharp divisions. Regardless of all this, however, we think that the most serious threat the peace process faces lies in Israel’s attempts to give the impression that the signing of this agreement has achieved peace in the region, and that the international community, and particularly Arab countries, must behave accordingly. The judgement of history on the Palestinian-Israeli agreement since the secret Oslo talks has become the responsibility of the Palestinian people and their institutions. No one should think that Syria is going to obstruct this agreement, nor does Syria need to do so. But at the same time, no one should expect that Syria is going to prevent the Palestinians from criticizing the agreement, while the Israeli Prime Minister has not been able to prevent Israeli opposition from doing so despite his repeated assurances that he has made no concession to the Palestinians. Yet in spite of all this, Israel still claims that it needs enough time to digest the Israeli-Palestinian agreement in a blatant attempt to evade the serious follow-up of the peace process launched in Madrid two years ago. In the meantime, the international community, the United States at the fore, has seen the necessity of capitalizing on the momentum generated by this agreement to continue the peace process on other tracks, particularly on the Syrian and Lebanese tracks. The Arab States have also stressed, in the communiqué issued at the meeting of their Foreign Ministers in Cairo on 20 September 1993, that this first step: "must be completed by urgent steps on all tracks and must guarantee the withdrawal of Israel from all the occupied Syrian Golan and from the Lebanese lands ... for the Arab League Council believes that, for peace in the Middle East to be lasting, it has to be just and comprehensive and must be based on Security Council resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973) and 425 (1978) and on international legality." Peace cannot be built on lands under occupation, nor can it be achieved through the usurpation of the rights of others. Those who are trying to make people believe that the Middle East has suddenly been transformed into an oasis of peace and prosperity know better than anyone that peace, stability and prosperity cannot possibly coexist with occupation, arrogance and the denial of the rights of others. It is about time Israel stopped misleading world opinion and portraying itself as a victim. Is it reasonable that a country should continue to claim that it is the victim while it continues to produce and stockpile the most sophisticated of weapons, including all kinds of weapons of mass-destruction, and continues to occupy the lands of others by force, in defiance of United Nations resolutions? My country, Syria, which declares its positions candidly and clearly to the whole world without fear of blame, will not give up an inch of its occupied territories. It is committed to continuing the peace process in earnest and is also committed to doing all that is required of it in compliance with Security Council resolutions 242 (167) and 338 (1973), as well as the "land for peace" formula. Syria will also continue to work with the co-sponsors of the peace process with a view to achieving a genuine, just and comprehensive peace so that the Middle East may indeed become an oasis of peace, stability and prosperity.