Syria

Allow me to congratulate the fraternal Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and you personally, Mr. President, on your election to the presidency of the General Assembly at this session. I wish you success in your endeavours, and succeed you will, given your vast experience and competence. I also extend our deep appreciation to your predecessor, Mr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, for successfully steering the work of the sixty-third session; I recognize his positive stand vis-à-vis the fundamental issues with which the international community is seized. I also wish the Secretary-General every success in his undertakings as he seeks to fulfil the purposes and principles of our international Organization. We come here every year and stress from this very rostrum, as do many others, that the Middle East is one of the most tense regions of the world and that the situation is extremely ominous. From this very rostrum, most speakers stress that a just and comprehensive peace is an urgent requirement for the realization of the interests of all parties in the region and the world at large. However, paying lip service to the need for peace is obviously different from working for peace. Actions inside and outside the region have spoken louder than words, and peace has remained elusive for years. During that time, Israel waged two devastating wars against Lebanon and Gaza. It had no qualms about committing internationally prohibited acts or breaching international law, encouraged and protected by the Administration of former United States President Bush. To date, Israel continues to impose a stifling siege on Gaza, in contravention of the most basic humanitarian principles and tenets of international humanitarian law. These facts have been confirmed by many investigations, and were most recently published in the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. The head of the Mission concluded that Israel had committed grave violations of human rights law, and international humanitarian law, including war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. The international approach to the Middle East question has changed in previous years. Addressing this issue has become a priority, and has been followed by immediate action on the ground. This is certainly reassuring. It is our sincere hope that these efforts will bear fruit. But the engagement by the new United States Administration, the members of the Security Council, the European Union, the Organization for the Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement has been continuously confronted with Israeli measures and positions that ignore the most basic underpinnings of the peace process. Israel defies the policies of its friends and allies and undermines their will. Israel also challenges the will of the overwhelming majority — if not the entirety — of the international community. Perhaps more than ever before, Israel has now revealed its true colours: an entity that has enshrined racism, aggression and tension-building while balking at peace and repudiating the advocates of peace. Israel refuses to freeze illegitimate settlement building and is thus in breach of its obligations under international law. Israel continues to confiscate Palestinian land, build the apartheid wall, Judaize Jerusalem, expel inhabitants from their homes and bring in settlers to replace them. This list is in no way exhaustive. These facts are substantiated by figures but, in the interest of time, we shall not dwell on them in detail. Suffice it to say that the two-State solution advocated by the international community has been rejected by the Israeli Government. The Israeli Prime Minister’s comments on the subject are sheer tactical manoeuvres that are contradicted entirely by the policies pursued by his Government on the ground. President Bashar Al-Assad has said that peace is antithetical to occupation. Peace and occupation cannot coexist. He stressed that we in Syria seek a just and comprehensive peace and that peace is our strategic choice. It is a choice based on the implementation of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), the Madrid terms of reference, the principle of land for peace and the Arab Peace Initiative. We have supported every effort aimed at achieving this goal. To that end, we entered into indirect talks with Israel through Turkish mediation and sought to arrive at common ground that would ultimately enable us to launch direct negotiations. But the absence of genuine political will to make peace and the war of aggression that the Israeli Government waged against Gaza brought this pursuit to a halt. 25 09-52598 In full view of the world and in defiance of its unanimous will, Israel has chosen to be a rejectionist State. It has chosen to challenge the international community. This is a dangerous position and a stance that threatens peace and security in the region. The continued occupation, the Judaization of Jerusalem, the intensification of settlement activities and the racist slogans presage serious consequences for the world. The world must not succumb to the dictates of Israeli extremists. It must not allow Israel to persist in its violation of international law and its defiance of international will and decisions. Brotherly Iraq continues to bleed. The situation in Iraq is a cause for serious concern to us as a neighbouring Arab country. We have continuously stressed the urgency of preserving the unity of Iraq’s territory and people while guaranteeing its sovereignty and safeguarding its independence and its Arab-Islamic identity. To that end, it is urgent to build Iraqi national unity on the basis of national reconciliation, which must include Iraqis of all stripes. Iraqi national unity is the cornerstone of the reconciliation process, but it will remain elusive unless the necessary conditions for national reconciliation are achieved. We have continuously condemned all aggressive acts that claim the lives of innocent victims in Iraq. We have also repeatedly called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq and for the restoration of full Iraqi independence and sovereignty. We have stressed our readiness to facilitate that withdrawal by extending our cooperation in maintaining security in Iraq. It is our hope that Iraqis will soon be able to arrive, through constructive dialogue, at solutions that firmly support Iraq’s unity, strength and prosperity while remaining fully dedicated and loyal to the unity of the land of Iraq and its people. Syria has been dedicated to strengthening bilateral Syrian-Iraqi relations in all their aspects. We established a bilateral council for strategic cooperation in various fields. We were distressed by the recent “Bloody Wednesday” terrorist bombings in Baghdad, which we strongly condemn. But we were surprised to hear, days later, accusations levelled at us — accusations devoid of any truth — implying that we harboured those suspected of masterminding those bombings. These claims and the ensuing developments are extremely unfortunate and cannot serve the interests of Iraq or Syria. We are open to suggestions on how to solve the current crisis by demanding that real evidence be made available to substantiate those claims. This has not yet been done. We stress that protecting the Iraqi people and safeguarding their interests is one of our priorities. We are also keen to safeguard the fraternal relations between the Iraqi and Syrian peoples and express our satisfaction at the current efforts of Turkey and the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States. We have followed with grave concern the recent developments in Yemen. We hope that security will ultimately prevail. We support Yemen’s unity, stability and the prosperity of its people. Attempts to undermine the Sudan’s unity and to compromise its security and sovereignty are also a cause of concern for us. We fully support the Sudan and its leadership and stress the need to create favourable conditions conducive to a settlement of all pending issues. In that regard, we appreciate the efforts made by the State of Qatar in cooperation with the League of Arab States and the African Union. Another cause for concern is the events unfolding in Somalia, a country already afflicted by war and internal strife. We call on our brothers there to work for national reconciliation and to use dialogue as a means of settling their differences. We urge them to work towards the unity of Somalia, which as the supreme national interest should take precedence over any other consideration, and to lay the foundations for security and stability in their country. We support the efforts of the African Union to settle the existing conflicts that continue to plague some parts of the African continent, to achieve development in the countries of Africa and to promote the African role in the international system. We also renew our call for the lifting of the blockade imposed on Cuba for more than half a century. For years, Syria has been calling for the establishment of a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East region. To this end, Syria tabled a draft resolution before the Security Council in 2003 calling for the establishment of such a zone. Today Syria stresses the need for Israel to commit to complying with the resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted on 18 September of this year regarding Israeli nuclear 09-52598 26 capabilities (GC(53)/RES/17), in which the Agency called upon Israel to place its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards and to accede to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). We recall once again the right of all States to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, as guaranteed by the NPT. We fully support constructive dialogue as a means to settle all differences. The world is still reeling from a crippling economic and financial crisis that has adversely affected the economic and social conditions of most countries of the world. Very few countries, if any, have been spared its devastating effects. This crisis led many to question its root causes, shedding light on the deficiencies in the financial system and its practices and thus highlighting the sound practices that could have prevented the crisis. The world cannot deal with the crisis as a fait accompli. We must seek answers and outcomes that endorse sound practices and remedy systemic imbalances that are bound to affect us all in the globalized world in which we live. Our common goal is to establish a more secure economic and financial world order. It goes without saying that the countries of the South have disparate economies and are comparatively more disadvantaged and adversely affected by the current crisis than those of the North. The world’s poor end up paying a higher price for a breakdown that is not of their making. Rich States are therefore duty bound to provide all forms of support to poorer countries to help them overcome this crisis. Poor countries have earned this support, and any positive results that it generates will serve the interests of poor and rich countries alike. We also call for the increased participation of developing countries in the work of the Group of 20, which would enable them to put forward proposals and advance appropriate responses to overcome the crisis. We and many others have often called for an enhanced and reinvigorated role for the United Nations in order to build a better, more just and more secure world. We believe that the present moment is auspicious. We therefore call on all Member States to work seriously to ensure compliance with the Charter of our international Organization and to introduce the necessary reforms in order to promote it, learning from the lessons of past decades and from our achievements and failures. We sincerely look forward to a world governed by respect for international law in which security, stability and prosperity reign supreme.