Tunisia

At the outset, I would like to extend to you, Sir, and through you to the brotherly Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya our sincere congratulations upon your election as President of the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth session. We are confident that your broad experience and many skills will help enrich our work at this session and achieve the objectives to which we all aspire. Our high appreciation goes also to Mr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann for the excellent manner in which he conducted the work of the previous session. I also express our warmest thanks and appreciation to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his tireless efforts in the service of world peace and security to promote the role of the United Nations, achieve our common noble objectives and find effective solutions to various international problems. Today our world is witnessing profound and rapid changes that have added new dimensions to international relations, which in turn have altered the balances and equations that have long governed those relations. These changes have generated major challenges at various levels, requiring all parties to shoulder their responsibilities with vision and wisdom and to enhance their efforts to establish the foundations of a safer, more stable and more developed world and of balanced and equitable international relations based on solidarity. We must redouble our efforts to reform the United Nations, which was designed decades ago, in order to update it to current global circumstances and enable it to carry out its essential role in maintaining international peace, security and development, and in serving the interests of world solidarity. Global circumstances have changed since the creation of the United Nations. Its present structure and equations no longer reflect the reality of the world situation and international relations. Given our concern for justice and balance in international relations, we hope that the international community will introduce the necessary reforms to the United Nations system, in particular in the context of expanding the Security Council and increasing the transparency and efficiency of its work, while bearing in mind need for the broadest possible consensus among States on pending issues. In spite of its complex and interrelated nature, the world situation can only strengthen our attachment to the United Nations and to its founding principles. Those principles constitute the ideal framework for coordinating and uniting our efforts to address issues 09-52598 20 and challenges in the implementation of the noble principles enshrined in the Charter, finding effective solutions to pending issues, mitigating the impact of the economic and social crisis, and promoting solidarity-based frameworks of partnership and cooperation, in keeping with a more comprehensive approach based on the close correlation between peace, security and development. Further rapprochement and solidarity among the nations of the world remain, in our view, among the noblest aims of the United Nations and a pillar of the new system of international relations. Therefore, today more than ever before, we must further disseminate the culture of tolerance, dialogue and acceptance of the other and respect for cultural differences and religious symbols. We must build constructive relations among States and peoples, based on moderation and the rejection of extremism, violence and fanaticism of any kind. For many years now, Tunisia has promoted initiatives to give effect to that noble objective, the most recent of which was “Kairouan, Capital of Islamic Culture for the Year 2009”, organized with the cooperation of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the International Organization of la Francophonie. Globalization, with its numerous problems and major challenges, requires us to pay close attention to our young people and to constantly listen to their concerns in order to protect them from exclusion, marginalization and the dangers of seclusion, extremism, carelessness and estrangement, while at the same time instilling in them a culture of tolerance, compromise and moderation. Based on the special status that we reserve for our young people, whom we consider to be our true wealth, the support of the present and foundation of the future, we in Tunisia have insisted on entrenching the spirit of responsibility within this group and encourage them to participate actively in all aspects of public life and in establishing the country’s future policies and objectives. Based on this vision and our experience in dealing with our youth and its aspirations, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali called for the proclamation of 2010 as the International Year of Youth and for the convening, under United Nations auspices and in cooperation with the relevant international organizations, of a world youth conference to be attended by young people from all over the world and to conclude with the drafting of an international pact uniting world youth around universal values. We strongly hope that this initiative will contribute to deepening awareness of the position of young people in society so that they become active stakeholders in the success of our development processes. Furthermore, young people should play a major role in promoting dialogue and in enhancing understanding and mutual respect among peoples on the basis of universal values and noble human principles concerning which all cultures and civilizations agree — values such as tolerance, moderation and respect of the other; rejection of all forms of violence, extremism and discrimination; the culture of citizenship, solidarity, peace and communication; stimulation of the spirit of initiative; volunteerism and environmental protection. This initiative already enjoys the support of Arab, African and Islamic regional organizations as well as the Non-Aligned Movement. We look forward to your support, Mr. President, for the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly at this session in order to give concrete expression to this initiative. Terrorism remains a major threat to world peace, security and development, in spite of numerous national and international efforts to counter it. It remains a challenge to the international community, and we have on numerous occasions called for a comprehensive approach in addressing a danger that spares no one. We must take into consideration the root causes of such phenomena, as well as just and sustainable solutions to ongoing world problems. We must work to decrease poverty, exclusion and marginalization, and we must confront extremist movements that favour fanaticism, seclusion and hatred. As one of the first countries to warn against the dangers of this phenomenon in the early 1990s, Tunisia renews its call for the convening of an international conference under the auspices of the United Nations to craft a universally binding code of conduct to fight terrorism. Faithful to its identity and keen to ensure its full integration into its community, Tunisia strives tirelessly and resolutely to enhance cooperation with its partners in various regional affiliations. In the firm 21 09-52598 belief that the Arab Maghreb Union is an indispensable strategic choice for the interests of the Maghreb peoples and will enhance the regional and international status of its members in a world where blocs and groupings are proliferating, Tunisia has spared no effort, together with other Maghreb countries, to complete the process of building the Union, promote common Maghreb action and work to overcome the temporary difficulties that are preventing its materialization. We seek thereby to ensure that the Union enjoys the position it deserves on the international scene and to increase the capacity of its member States to meet present and future challenges. Tunisia also continues to work to promote common Arab action, revitalize its mechanisms, develop cooperation and partnership relations with sister Arab States in various fields, and bring about the desired Arab economic integration and complementarity. Many international problems, particularly in the Middle East, remain unresolved and are a source of deep concern for the international community, with negative consequences for security and stability in the region and the world. From this rostrum, we reaffirm Tunisia’s constant and principled support for the just Palestinian cause and the brotherly Palestinian people in their struggle to recover their legitimate rights and to establish their independent State on their own land. We note with satisfaction the positive stance of the United States Administration on the Middle East issue, the elements of a just and comprehensive settlement of the conflict, the two-State solution, and subsequent international efforts and momentum to revive the peace talks. Today, we renew our appeal to the international community, especially the sponsors of the peace process, to intensify their efforts so as to compel Israel to end its settlement policy, without preconditions, thus enabling talks between the Palestinian and Israeli sides to resume, in accordance with international resolutions, all peace terms of reference and the Arab Peace Initiative. Achieving peace and ensuring security and stability in the Middle East will require Israel to lift the blockade, dismantle the roadblocks and abandon its humiliating measures and other provocative steps against the Palestinians, as well as the recovery by the Palestinian people of its legitimate national rights, the establishment of its independent State, and Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Syrian Golan and the Lebanese lands that remain under Israeli occupation. We also express our solidarity with the brotherly Iraqi people and hope that they will overcome the difficulties they still face, achieve national reconciliation and consolidate security and stability so that all Iraqis can devote themselves to the reconstruction of their country in a spirit of unity and accord. The hotspots of tension and conflict in many regions of Africa, some of which persist, have devastated the continent, sapped its energies and potential, jeopardized its development, slowed its growth and negatively affected its societies. Faced with this situation and given the necessarily comprehensive nature of any approach to world peace and security, the international community and the United Nations organs, first and foremost the Security Council, must support the efforts of the African Union and its member States and stand with the African peoples as they seek to restore security and stability and to overcome the effects of conflict and war. Given the organic relationship between peace, security and development, and the world’s pressing need to reinvigorate the values of cooperation and solidarity, Tunisia proposed an initiative that was adopted by the General Assembly in December 2002 to create the World Solidarity Fund to fight poverty and lay the foundations of solidarity-based development. Today we renew our call to operationalize the Fund, thus enabling it to assist developing countries, particularly those in Africa. On a different level, and taking into consideration the rich and long-standing political, economic, social and cultural links between Tunisia and Europe, our country is ever keen to strengthen its relations with all the States of that sphere. Tunisia’s relations with the European Union have seen tangible progress, thanks to both sides’ determination to upgrade their ties to the level of advanced partnership, thus opening prospects for enhanced cooperation in all fields and enabling our country to achieve further integration with its regional and international environment. The Euro-Mediterranean region remains one of the main focuses of Tunisia’s foreign policy. On the basis of our strong belief in the importance of building 09-52598 22 a secure, stable and prosperous Mediterranean region on a foundation of equal partnership and mutual interests, we support initiatives and mechanisms to consolidate peace and promote development. From this perspective, Tunisia is determined to play an active role in ensuring the success of Mediterranean cooperation for the benefit of the peoples of the region. Tunisia is also working to strengthen its ties of friendship and to broaden and enrich its cooperation with American and Asian States through the establishment of a solidarity-based partnership. We are thus laying the groundwork for a new era in these relations that will secure the interests of all sides, bring them together, consolidate conditions of peace and stability, and achieve further progress and prosperity around the world. The peoples of the world today urgently need a clean environment and all States must preserve it in order to avoid the severe consequences of which much research and many studies have warned, as climate change has caused huge economic losses to the international community. Seeking to meet the environmental, economic and social challenges caused by climate change, in November 2007 Tunisia hosted the International Solidarity Conference on Climate Change Strategies for the African and Mediterranean Regions. Our country also hosted the African regional meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in order to develop a unified African position and garner support for African States that are negatively affected by desertification and land deterioration, as well as to promote scientific research in this field. Tunisia has spared neither effort nor energy over the past two decades to join the ranks of developed countries, based on an open-minded and forward- looking vision, the foundations of which were laid by President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. This vision has encompassed all fields — political, economic, social and development — and been implemented via thorough reforms to strengthen democracy and the culture of human rights in word and deed, and through the expansion of public freedoms and the participation of all sectors of Tunisian society in charting the country’s political course within the frameworks of the rule of law and institutions. I reiterate in conclusion that our success in securing development and promoting relations of cooperation among all States is closely linked to an international environment characterized by security, stability and justice.