It is my pleasure to congratulate you, Sir, upon your
election as President of the Assembly at this session.
There is no doubt that your expertise and your
knowledge of international affairs will ensure anther
successful session this year and will contribute to
fulfilling the aspirations of our peoples for the United
Nations.
I take this opportunity to express my deepest
thanks and appreciation to our dear sister, Her
Excellency Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, President
of the General Assembly at its sixty-first session, and
to commend her for the way in which she so ably and
wisely guided the work of the Assembly. As a result,
serious ideas were put forward that yielded tangible
results for the development of the Organization and the
revitalization of its role. In that respect, we want to
express our appreciation to all delegations that
displayed a spirit of cooperation with her during her
presidency.
I have the pleasure also to thank His Excellency
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his ongoing efforts
to strengthen and develop the role of the United
Nations. We are confident that the Secretary-General’s
long experience as an able diplomat will enable him to
undertake further efforts to strengthen the effectiveness
of our international Organization.
In our joint endeavours to achieve world peace,
prosperity and justice, we must address the challenges
and dangers confronting our world today from a
standpoint of faith in our one human destiny. We
should realize that international security is based on
joint efforts to guarantee regional security and the
stability of States. At the same time, international
peace requires respect for international legitimacy, the
rule of law and justice. Since comprehensive
development is a national and international
requirement, it is important that we collectively and
seriously face threats regardless of their forms or
manifestations, such as conflict, war, nuclear
proliferation, terrorism, environment disaster, poverty,
backwardness and extremism, in accordance with the
principles and purposes of the Charter of the United
Nations and the resolutions and decisions adopted by
the General Assembly, including the United Nations
Millennium Declaration (resolution 55/2).
The resolution containing the Millennium
Declaration was a unique and pioneering endeavour
which embodied a consensus among the world leaders
who set out the goals we must reach in this new
millennium. In this respect, the Kingdom of Bahrain is
proud, by the grace of God, to have witnessed
comprehensive political developments in its
democratic march forward, under the leadership of His
Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, King of
Bahrain, where free and fair elections were held with
broad participation.
Meanwhile, its comprehensive development
efforts were crowned by the United Nations presenting
the 2006 Special Citation of the United Nations Human
Settlements Programme Scroll of Honour Award to His
Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa, Prime
Minister of the Kingdom of Bahrain. This reflected
international appreciation for the developments that
continue to be witnessed by the Kingdom, especially in
the field of urban development.
Social and economic achievements, under the
patronage also of His Highness Shaikh Salman bin
Hamad Al-Khalifa, Crown Prince and Commander-in-
Chief of the Bahrain Defence Force, have continued
unabated. They are based on strategies and policies
designed to ensure the welfare of all citizens by
encouraging investment, strengthening the national
human rights machinery, reforming the labour market
and developing the education sector.
In the decades since the establishment of the
United Nations, our world has witnessed both unipolar
and bipolar world orders. Worldwide events and the
ensuing results proved that such orders were not
enough to guarantee security, peace, stability and
prosperity in the world. Therefore, the time is now
right to enable everybody to participate effectively in a
universal system based on a just multilateralism that
guarantees collective work towards achieving common
goals.
We, as the United Nations, pledged in the
Charter, in the name of our peoples to save succeeding
generations from the scourge of war and to reaffirm
faith in fundamental human rights. That calls upon the
international community promptly and effectively to
address threats to international peace and security. At
the forefront of those threats are the ongoing regional
issues that the Middle East faces on various fronts, the
most important of which is the situation in the
Palestinian and other occupied Arab territories.
In this respect, we welcome the initiative of
President George Bush of the United States to convene
an international conference on Middle East peace this
year. We hope that this will mark the beginning of a
new stage in dealing with the core issue of the Arab-
Israeli conflict in a just and equitable manner, putting
an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people and to
the occupation since 1967 of the Palestinian territories,
the Syrian Golan and other occupied Arab territories in
sisterly Lebanon. It should also lead to the
establishment of an independent, contiguous and viable
Palestinian State, with Jerusalem as its capital. Such a
State should also be able to engage in development and
to live in peace and stability with all States in the
region, including Israel, in accordance with the Arab
Peace Initiative, United Nations resolutions and other
relevant international agreements and terms of
reference.
The second front is represented by the events in
brotherly Iraq, whose people suffer from continued
insecurity and instability as a result of the ceaseless
waves of violence and the killing of innocent people. It
is our view that the responsibility for breaking out of
this vicious circle and achieving national reconciliation
and stability lies primarily with the Iraqi people and
their political leadership. To enable Iraq to do that,
there must be no interference in Iraq’s internal affairs,
and its borders must be fully respected. We stress here
how important it is for neighbouring States, the Arab
League and the United Nations to continue to support
the legitimate Iraqi Government and its efforts to
maintain security and stability in Iraq and to preserve
its Arab and Islamic identity.
It seems clear that the attainment of stability in
Lebanon is closely bound to free national
reconciliation, and to strengthened national, Arab and
international efforts and support for Lebanon’s
legitimacy, with a view to preserving its security,
safety and stability. Lebanon is an integral part of the
system of regional peace and security in the Middle
East and as such should be supported. We express our
regret at the assassinations of many politicians,
officials and innocent people in Lebanon. We hope that
Lebanon will overcome the current crisis so that its
people can live in security and peace.
The stability and unity of the Sudan are
fundamental pillars of the political, economic and
social unity of Africa. We commend the decision of the
brotherly Sudan to agree to the deployment of a United
Nations-African Union hybrid force in Darfur. In that
context, we hope that the parties to the conflict in the
Sudan will come together for the sake of their country
and its prosperity.
The Kingdom of Bahrain recently joined the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), because
of its belief in the Agency’s important role in
strengthening nuclear non-proliferation. In order to
avoid a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, the
Kingdom of Bahrain underlines the importance of
freeing the region from nuclear weapons. It therefore
urges the parties concerned, including the Islamic
Republic of Iran, to be more transparent and to
cooperate fully with the terms of the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) so as to
build tranquillity and peace of mind among
neighbouring States in the Gulf. The Kingdom of
Bahrain reaffirms the right of all States to utilize
nuclear power for peaceful purposes. It also demands
that Israel place all its nuclear facilities under the
comprehensive safeguards regime of the IAEA and
become a party to the NPT in order to promote the
Treaty’s universality.
In order to promote friendly relations and
cooperation between members of the Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) and the Islamic Republic of Iran, the
Kingdom of Bahrain reaffirms the right of the brotherly
United Arab Emirates to recover its three occupied
islands. It hopes that the two countries will increase
their efforts and their contacts to resolve this issue
either through direct negotiation or by referring it to
the International Court of Justice.
Global climate change has become one of the
most dangerous challenges threatening the world and
its inhabitants. Climate change not only has an impact
on the environment, but also severely affects the
world’s economic and social order and hinders
development. We therefore call upon all States to
cooperate in order to identify solutions and ways to
deal with this phenomenon. Here I wish to commend
the high-level event on climate change, convened by
the Secretary-General on 24 September 2007 in New
York, on the theme “The future in our hands:
Addressing the leadership challenge of climate
change”.
Our faith in a single human destiny requires us to
consolidate a culture of peace, brotherhood and
dialogue among all nations and peoples and to abandon
phenomena of hatred, discrimination and division —
including what has been dubbed Islamophobia —
which some are promoting to incite upheaval and
hatred between peoples in order to serve their own
narrow political agendas and interests. Those
individuals forget that Islam is a monotheistic religion
and that it stresses brotherhood, love, coexistence and
tolerance. We hope in this context that the High-level
Dialogue to be held by the General Assembly on 4 and
5 October will contribute to reinforcing the values of
tolerance, understanding and respect for religions and
cultures.
The Kingdom of Bahrain reaffirms the
importance of joint efforts towards a new international
environment, in which we can achieve our hope and
aspiration to live in peace, security and stability in a
world in which mankind will also live in respect,
dignity and humanity; a world in which nations will
achieve development and build prosperity and well-
being; a world that will accept the cultures of others in
peaceful coexistence, free from hatred and intolerance;
and a world that believes in the unity of human destiny
and will work to attain security, prosperity, justice and
peace for humankind.