Mongolia

May I offer you, Sir, our sincere congratulations on your election to the high post of President of the General Assembly at its forty-ninth session. We are confident that under your able guidance the General Assembly will make significant progress on the important issues before it. We express our deep gratitude to Ambassador Samuel Insanally of Guyana for his admirable work during his presidency. At the outset, I wish to extend our heartfelt felicitations to the Republic of South Africa, which has begun its advancement along the road of democracy by dismantling the apartheid regime of racial discrimination and has assumed its rightful place in the community of nations. This historic event testifies to the fact that the purposes and principles that guide the United Nations, including that of respect for human rights, can be translated into reality. A number of other meaningful positive developments have taken place on the international scene over the last year, events that are inextricably linked to the tortuous emergence of a new atmosphere in the wake of the cold war. None the less, instability continues to plague various corners of the globe, bearing witness to the extreme difficulty of finding solutions to problems; hence the urgent need to harmonize our efforts and enhance the role of the United Nations. The international community is on the threshold of the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations. As part of the world-wide preparations for this event, a committee has been established in Mongolia to coordinate national activities. The fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations coincides with the demise of the cold war, the advent of a new era of mutual trust and partnership among nations and the emergence of unprecedented opportunities to implement the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter. This anniversary will serve as an important moment of reflection on the Organization’s 4 past, the lessons from both its successes and its failures and the tasks ahead of us. The world community expects the anniversary session next year to be crowned by the adoption at the summit level of a visionary document embodying its hopes and aspirations and outlining meaningful objectives for the new millennium. It is against this background that we see the special significance of this session of the General Assembly, which is to lay a sound foundation for the anniversary. The Secretary-General’s report entitled “An Agenda for Development” is a highlight of this session of the General Assembly. My delegation expresses its appreciation to the Secretary-General for producing a thought-provoking report which offers a comprehensive approach to development and innovative ideas for consideration. We hope that the upcoming discussion of that report will help in the search for an adequate response to persistent inequalities and imbalances, as well as ways to combat the abject poverty, external debt burden and environmental degradation that negatively affect the developing countries. “An Agenda for Development” is expected to promote people-centred sustainable development through, inter alia, a meaningful North-South partnership. In this connection, it would be advisable that the targets of earmarking 0.7 per cent of the industrialized countries’ gross national product (GNP) for official development assistance and allocating 20 per cent of that assistance for human priority concerns be reflected in that “Agenda”. We also wish to see included in the “Agenda” the idea of allocating 20 per cent of the budget of the developing countries for the aforementioned purpose. An active South-South cooperation is of vital importance for the sustainable development and self- reliance of the developing countries. In this regard the establishment of the South Centre will have a significant bearing on the strengthening of the foundations of such cooperation. The problems facing the countries in transition and the need for international cooperation to overcome them have found, in our view, a proper reflection in the “Agenda”. In order to ensure the success of transition, which has a direct bearing on the future of world developments, it is only fair that greater attention be given to enhancing the effectiveness of international cooperation towards that end. Furthermore, this cooperation should be tailored to the yspecific conditions of countries in transition. In the case of Mongolia, aside from such handicaps as a low level of development and a disadvantageous geographical location, our economy, in fact, finds itself dependent on another crisis-stricken country in transition. We believe that the time has come to make every effort to resolve the external debt problem of developing countries, taking into account the vital interests of their socio-economic development and the urgent need to lay the foundation for equitable economic cooperation. On the other hand, it is incumbent upon the creditor nations to display the political will to deal resolutely with that intractable problem. One might add that the realistic assessment of the underlying political and economic causes of the multiplying debt burden should be borne in mind in addressing this issue. The successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round and the ensuing decision to create the World Trade Organization represent an important step towards a fairer trading system. We hope that the entry into force of the Convention on the Law of the Sea will facilitate the solution of problems confronting, above all, the least developed, land- locked and geographically disadvantaged States. The post-Rio period has registered a welcome shift towards the broadening of international cooperation in addressing environmental issues. Nevertheless, we have to admit that there is a significant disparity between the importance that the international community attaches to this problem and the actual results of the work done in protecting the environment and halting the ecological crisis and remedying its consequences. In this regard, I wish to emphasize that commitments, especially those related to the flow of financial resources and the transfer of technology, have to be faithfully honoured. As a country exposed to drought and desertification, Mongolia welcomes the conclusion of the negotiations on, and the signing of, the international Convention to combat desertification. The convening of the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen next year is a clear manifestation of the fact that social issues are being brought to the centre of the international agenda. We trust that the Summit will serve as a powerful engine for marshalling political will at the highest level and will bring about a viable action programme to effectively address social challenges. This Summit, taken together with the recent International Conference on Population 5 and Development and the future conferences on women and on human settlements constitute an intertwined continuous process of international consensus building. Mongolia is advancing along the road of reforms, relying on the active support of the donor community and of international organizations. The International Monetary Fund-supported enhanced structural adjustment facility programme is in its second year of implementation. There is a positive trend towards checking economic decline and inflation and stabilizing the national currency. The role of the private sector in the national economy is growing considerably. Relying on the experience of the years of transition, we are on our way to finding effective ways and means for the State-governed economy. A great deal has been accomplished in laying down the legal foundations for societal life. Yet underlying problems continue to persist. At times, we face a situation in which one problem succeeds another. The fuel and energy sector is in a critical state. The living standards of the population continue to decline; poverty and unemployment are on the rise. There is a severe shortage of internal financial resources. In order to make substantive progress in overcoming these and other difficulties, foreign aid will continue to play a decisive role for some time to come. In this respect, we are looking forward to the fourth donor meeting to be held in Tokyo this November. As hardships seem to persist, the practice of holding regular donor meetings under the auspices of Japan and the World Bank remains essential. We trust that we will receive support and understanding from the parties concerned. However, this is not to say that we are pursuing a lopsided approach to overcoming the crisis and implementing structural economic adjustments, relying solely on outside assistance and ideas. It goes without saying that the only way, eventually, is in the development of equitable and mutually advantageous cooperation. Proceeding from this premise, we endeavour to attract foreign investment, including private investment, and to create the necessary legal, economic and other conditions. For any State, and for small States in particular, peace and stability in their respective regions are of vital importance. By and large, positive trends are prevailing in our region, despite the continued existence of hotbeds of conflict and tension. An important factor contributing to these trends is the development of Russian-Chinese relations and cooperation within the framework of friendly partnership. Mongolia welcomes the recent agreement between Russia and China not to target each other with strategic nuclear missiles; we see this as a development that augurs well for stability and confidence-building in the region and beyond. The maintenance of good- neighbourly relations with these two countries is of paramount importance to Mongolia, and today these relations are based on new Treaties on friendly relations and cooperation. As opposed to the headway made in resolving and preventing crisis situations in Asia, there seems to be no discernible shift for the better on the Korean Peninsula. We hope that the new leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the other parties concerned, bearing in mind the international dimensions of the problem, will display great responsibility in addressing the problems at hand. The agreement between the Government of Tajikistan and the opposition group on a temporary cease- fire constitutes a first, important step towards national reconciliation in Tajikistan, and should be built upon. Last year’s truly historic developments in the Middle East paved the way for the positive steps that we are witnessing today in the efforts to bring peace to the region, inching towards a comprehensive settlement of the Middle East conflict. We hope that the United States-Cuba bilateral agreement on the immigration question will prove to have a far-reaching impact on resolving the outstanding issues between these two countries. We commend the peaceful manner in which the goal of restoring democracy in Haiti was achieved. The wars that continue to rage in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Afghanistan and the tragedies in Rwanda and Somalia testify to the highly complex nature of these problems and remind us again that the efforts of the international community to resolve them should by no means decrease in intensity. Bold steps are needed, particularly by the nuclear- weapon States, to solve the mutually interlinked problems of the indefinite extension of the non-proliferation Treaty and the conclusion of a comprehensive test-ban treaty in 1995, as well as credible security assurances for the non- nuclear-weapon States. 6 It is gratifying to note that the five nuclear-weapon States supported Mongolia’s declaration of its territory as a nuclear-weapon-free zone and expressed their intention to respect that status. The Non-Aligned Movement has also welcomed that initiative as a commendable contribution to regional stability and confidence-building. In an effort to contribute to the establishment of an effective verification system for the future comprehensive test-ban treaty, Mongolia has expressed its interest in being part of the global seismic monitoring network. We stand ready to cooperate on this question with the interested parties. The unchecked arms trade and its increase to global proportions, and especially its extension into volatile and unstable regions of the world, is fraught with dangerous consequences. We believe that it is high time for the United Nations to take a close and comprehensive look at the issue with a view to formulating the legal parameters of the conduct of States in this respect. In recent years the role and influence of the Non- Aligned Movement in world politics have grown. Considerable progress has been achieved in implementing the Jakarta Final Document, which epitomized the new strategy of the Movement in the post-cold-war era. The Cairo Ministerial Conference, held last June, contributed to the enhancement of the Movement’s activities. Here, I should also like to mention that this Conference emphasized the need to augment the Movement’s efforts with a view to adequately responding to common problems facing the developing countries. I wish to make a few more comments on the United Nations. In the wake of the cold-war policy that limited the capacity of the United Nations to implement fully the purposes and principles of its Charter, new opportunities have opened up before the world Organization. All at once, the eyes of the world, full of hope and expectation, have turned to the United Nations. The United Nations has exerted a great deal of effort, and it can be credited with impressive accomplishments, especially in the areas of peace-keeping and humanitarian assistance. Nevertheless, many Member States have voiced their concern over and criticism of the restructuring of the United Nations and have stressed the need to ensure a proper balance in its activities. We can well understand the justified criticism that our Organization is disproportionately preoccupied with peace- keeping and security issues at the expense of its urgent development agenda. We expect that with deliberations on and the subsequent adoption of the Agenda for Development there will be less grounds for such criticism. The composition of the Security Council and its methods of work do not reflect the realities of the time. My delegation hopes that the ongoing deliberations in the Working Group on this issue will be intensified and successfully concluded by the fiftieth session of the General Assembly. We commend and support the Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, in his efforts to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the Secretariat. We are confident that the Secretary-General will persevere in his reform process, and wish him every success in his future endeavours. The Mongolian people is approaching an auspicious event, which will be observed this coming November — namely, the seventieth anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic, which represents an important juncture in restoring our independence. My people has accomplished since then an arduous journey marked by ups and downs. Today we are continuing our reforms in line with our democratic Constitution of 1992. In keeping with its foreign policy concept, Mongolia will continue to endeavour to make its own contribution to the common cause of developing friendly relations and cooperation between nations and ensuring peace, security and progress.