Kyrgyzstan

Allow me, on behalf of the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic and its people, to congratulate my colleague the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Mr. Udovenko, on his election to the high office of President of the fifty-second session of the General Assembly, and to wish him success in his endeavours. May I also express our feelings of respect for his country, which is playing an important role in resolving regional and global issues. I would also like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the previous President of the General Assembly, the representative of the friendly Malaysian people, Ambassador Razali Ismail, for his active and dynamic efforts in establishing constructive dialogue on ways to reform the United Nations. Like the entire international community, Kyrgyzstan expects genuine progress regarding the complex issue of the reform of the United Nations to come out of the present session. We are confident that the session will be able to cope with the problems facing the Organization today during this difficult and complicated period. The President and the Government of my country fully support the efforts of the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, to enhance the efficiency of the United Nations, and his ability to respond sensitively and adequately to the challenges of a rapidly changing world. We are confident that a renewed United Nations will truly embody the principles and purposes proclaimed in its Charter, ensuring the harmony of the interests of all its Members in the name of peace and progress. We are ready to support all proposals that promote that goal. Regarding the reform of the Security Council, the issue of improving its methods of work is no less important than the question of enlarging its membership. Kyrgyzstan believes that these questions must be considered together. We continue to support the proposal for permanent membership in the Council for Japan and Germany. However, in our view, the permanent members of the Security Council should also include one representative each from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Mankind is now on the eve of a new millennium, and the changes taking place are altering the image of mankind and shifting the emphasis in the models for understanding and explaining our world. The collapse of a bipolar world has provided us an opportunity to focus efforts on resolving the issues of poverty, health care, education, economic development and democracy. We are all, however, still facing the threat of local and regional conflicts, international terrorism, organized crime, illegal trafficking in drugs and weapons, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the deterioration of the state of the environment. All these negative aspects of human activity threaten the global trend towards strengthening peace and progress, undermine the fragile new democracies, wear down the strength of the developing countries and generally threaten all our efforts focused on building a safer and better world. The period after the achievement of independence was decisive for Kyrgyzstan, in the context of the formation of national statehood and of new social and economic ties. The country is actively seeking ways and means to harmoniously integrate itself into the international community. Clear successes have already been achieved on this thorny path in strengthening 10 democratic institutions, radical reform of the economy of the country, improving the means for achieving inter-ethnic agreement, enhancing tolerance and ensuring human rights. The leadership of the country is also concentrating on those domestic and international issues which must be developed on a permanent and positive basis for the well- being of the population of Kyrgyzstan. Our country was the first of the newly independent States to draw up and adopt a national plan of action for environmental protection. In the light of the implementation of the decisions of the Rio Conference, Kyrgyzstan is now carrying out a country project, Capacity 21, which consists of three major components: coordination of and carrying out ecological studies, stable management of water resources and economic growth and social development. Through an edict of President Akayev, a national strategy has been adopted for sustainable human development which recognizes man, and his harmonious existence with nature, as the highest priority. Kyrgyzstan was the first country in the region to draw up a “concept for ecological security”. The Declaration adopted by the conference in Rio ranks mountainous ecological systems among those particularly vulnerable to natural and man-made impacts. It is universally recognized that peoples living in mountainous regions bear far heavier social and economic burdens than those who live in plains. In the light of these factors and circumstances and also on the basis of the decisions of the Global Environment Facility, our country held an international conference on problems of mountain ecosystems. The participants in the conference put forward a proposal to proclaim an international year of the mountains, a proposal which was actively supported by President Akayev in his message to the delegates to the mountain forum and in his letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. At the regular session of the Economic and Social Council in July this year, in Geneva, a resolution proclaiming International Year of Mountains, sponsored by 44 countries, was adopted by consensus. The resolution contains a request to the Secretary-General to present to the regular session of the Economic and Social Council in 1998, after consultations with Governments and with the relevant international, regional and non-governmental organizations, a report on the desirability of proclaiming the International Year of Mountains and other measures to ensure the sustainable development of mountainous countries. I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to Governments and, above all, to the other sponsors to submit the relevant information for incorporation into a complete and comprehensive report on this question by the Secretary-General. I hope the General Assembly will in turn adopt a consensus decision on this initiative. At the same time, we believe that it is possible, with support from Governments, to raise the question of drawing up a global programme of action to ensure the sustainable development of countries with mountainous regions, similar to the programme being carried out for small island developing countries. There can be no doubt that the economic gap between the rich developed countries and the developing world has widened over recent years. The poorest countries are not in a position to take off economically or socially and are continuing to lose the ties that enable them to participate in the world economy. We can assume that if this trend continues, their numbers will continue to grow, and this represents a serious threat to all human development. We need to halt that trend. In this context, in the view of the experts, the most promising approaches are to increase investments in human resources to encourage the implementation of ecologically clean and effective technologies and to reform price structures. In our view, it is precisely in these areas that United Nations activities, in new conditions, should be stepped up in order to promote economic and social progress. We support the efforts of the Secretary-General to promote stable and sustainable development. Supporting peace and security is the highest priority task of the United Nations. We place great store by the United Nations peacekeeping activities and pay due tribute to the courage and selflessness of United Nations personnel working in regions of conflict. The efforts of the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan, headed by the Special Representative of the Secretary- General, Mr. Gerd Merrem, and the Collective Peacekeeping Forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), culminated successfully in Moscow on 27 June 1997 with the signing of the General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan, which opened the way for the country’s transition from war to reconstruction and rehabilitation. As a representative of one of the States that is a guarantor of peace in Tajikistan, I am gratified to note my 11 country’s involvement in this event. The mediation efforts of Kyrgyzstan, and of President Akayev himself, helped bring about the important agreement in May this year that laid the way for the General Agreement, namely, the signing of the Protocol on Political Questions. However, as the events in August demonstrated, peace in Tajikistan is still extremely fragile and its survival depends, first and foremost, on the Tajik parties themselves and how faithful they are to the commitments they have made. We are convinced that our Tajik friends will be able to see this through. The prospects for peace-building in Tajikistan depend to a significant extent on the situation along the Tajik- Afghan border. The armed conflict in Afghanistan is of the greatest concern to the States of the Central Asian region; it fosters the illegal production and trafficking of drugs and is prompting the massive flow of refugees to neighbouring countries. The President and Government of Kyrgyzstan are firmly convinced that there can be only one solution to the Afghan conflict, namely, a political solution. The problem can be solved with the political will of the Afghan parties above all and assistance from neighbouring States that have an influence in the region. We have not abandoned hope regarding the organization of direct inter-Afghan negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations to discuss conditions for a ceasefire and subsequent measures to bring about national reconciliation. In November 1996, President Akayev put forward an initiative to hold these negotiations in Bishkek. Subsequently, this proposal was repeated at meetings in New York of top officials and experts on Afghanistan. Building on this initiative, in August the President of Kyrgyzstan appealed to the parties to the conflict and Heads of State and Government concerned. Kyrgyzstan, which does not share a border with Afghanistan and has no interest aside from ensuring regional security, considers the organization of inter-Afghan negotiations under United Nations auspices an integral part of its peaceful policy of good-neighbourly relations and cooperation. Kyrgyzstan is ready to play the impartial role of mediator and make its good offices available to ensure a peaceful settlement of this problem. Pursuant to its peaceful policy, Kyrgyzstan has been actively promoting in the United Nations since 1995 the idea of establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia, as reflected in a number of working papers of the 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Preparatory Committee of the Conference of Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to be held in the year 2000 and the Disarmament Commission. We are firmly convinced that the creation of nuclear-weapon-free zones, which is an important confidence-building measure and a positive backdrop to the disarmament process, is helping strengthen peace and security in the region and, in the final analysis, throughout the world. With the entry into force of the Treaties of Pelindaba and Bangkok, more than 1.7 billion people will be living in zones free of nuclear weapons. Together with Antarctica, this territory will cover practically the entire southern hemisphere. It is essential that we do all we can to support and promote the establishment of nuclear- weapon-free zones. Here, above all, we are hoping for the understanding and support of nuclear-weapon States. At the international conference this September on the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones, held in Tashkent, Kyrgyzstan proposed the convening of an advisory meeting of the five Central Asian States, the five nuclear-weapon States that are permanent members of the Security Council, and representatives of the United Nations to discuss practical measures to make this idea a reality. The conference approved the proposal. Kyrgyzstan is actively participating in peacekeeping activities. The Collective Peacekeeping Forces of CIS in Tajikistan includes one of our battalions. Kyrgyz military personnel in the Central Asian peacekeeping battalion took part in the joint exercises held within the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) programme Partnership for Peace. Kyrgyzstan is also a member of the United Nations Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. We are also interested in training an international peace force, military observers and civilian personnel so that they can participate in peacekeeping operations. I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to ask the United Nations and the donor countries to give us as much assistance as possible in this area. In conclusion, I should like to say that this is a decisive session for the United Nations. I should like to express the hope that the interests of individual countries and regions can be reconciled and that they will not prevail over responsibility for the fate of our common Organization. On this positive note, I should like to end my statement. 12