I should like to
warmly congratulate Mr. Treki on his election as
President of the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth
session. We express our readiness to work with him to
achieve the ambitious agenda ahead of us during this
session. I should also like to extend our thanks to
outgoing President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann for his
hard work during the previous session.
Each new session of the General Assembly
provides an opportunity for us to share our
achievements and concerns with each other, and to join
our efforts in moving the global agenda forward. We
are going through a truly challenging period. In the
past year, we were all devastated by the impact of the
financial crisis. The crisis left no corner of the world
and no economic sector untouched. Many countries
experienced unprecedented economic decline, which
seriously challenged their hard-earned advances and
prospects for attaining the Millennium Development
Goals by 2015. Armenia was not spared the dramatic
effects of the ongoing financial crisis. However, the
Armenian Government has done best to safeguard the
socially vulnerable. No budget cuts have been made in
the social sector.
We believe that our endeavours must be guided
first and foremost by the need to mitigate the human
costs of the crisis in order to avoid serious
consequences for human security. We believe that an
equitable global recovery requires the full participation
of all countries, irrespective of their size and level of
development, in shaping appropriate responses to the
crisis. And we have to come together here, in this
universal body, to take decisions that will help us
overcome the past and build for the future, because
there are still painful gaps separating the dreams of our
people and their prospects.
In accordance with their respective mandates, the
United Nations funds, programmes and agencies have
an important role to play in advancing development in
accordance with national strategies and priorities, and
in assisting countries in achieving the internationally
agreed Millennium Development Goals. We understand
that achieving these goals, the deadline for which is
2015, will require enormous efforts. The General
Assembly will continue to address this issue during its
sixty-fourth session, and Armenia is ready to contribute
to the preparatory process for a high-level meeting on
this topic in September 2010.
We have embarked on the process of United
Nations reform in order to ensure that this forum can
13 09-52604
better reflect present-day realities and to enhance its
capabilities and effectiveness in addressing modern
challenges. Armenia commits itself to strengthening
the institutional capacities of the United Nations,
supports the process of United Nations reform and is
ready to make its contribution.
We have successfully agreed on several vital
decisions, including the creation of the Peacebuilding
Commission and the Human Rights Council. We aspire
to further advance the protection of human rights, in
conformity with the obligations of Member States, and
we see honest discussion within the Human Rights
Council on outstanding issues and the sharing of
experiences on how to overcome them as the true path
to success in this respect.
We regard the prevention of genocide and the
responsibility to protect as the key principles and
cornerstones of the overall human security system. In
this respect, we commend the report of the Secretary-
General on implementing the responsibility to protect
(A/63/677), which charts a course for the United
Nations to prevent genocide, war crimes and ethnic
cleansing by bolstering the capacities of the
Organization.
As is rightly stated in the report, genocide does
not happen all of a sudden. The instigators propagate
intolerance and hatred, preparing the ground for
violence. As survivors of genocide, we Armenians
welcome all efforts to prevent and combat racist and
xenophobic attitudes. We have done and will continue
to do all we can to provide for continuous advocacy in
favour of the prevention of genocide. The international
community must be vigilant to the development of
such situations and events, and demonstrate its ability
to act in a timely fashion to prevent future tragedies.
We consider achieving the goals of disarmament
and non-proliferation to be major elements of global
and regional security systems. We must shoulder our
responsibilities and work towards not only
non-proliferation and the elimination of nuclear
weapons, but also the elimination of the militaristic
aspirations of some States. It is totally unacceptable
that threats to resolve disputes by military means are
made at the highest level, and that they are left
unchallenged by the international community.
The Nagorny Karabakh peace process, which is
mediated by the co-chairs of the Minsk Group of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE), is moving forward. The Presidents and
Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Armenia and
Azerbaijan meet regularly to discuss the principles of a
comprehensive resolution of the conflict. Armenia is
convinced that, in order to create an opportunity for
progress in the peaceful settlement of the Nagorny
Karabakh conflict, the parties should commit to
refraining from taking steps that could hamper
dialogue and the peace process.
Azerbaijan consistently misrepresents the essence
of the Nagorny Karabakh problem in the international
arena, as it did two days ago in this forum, trying to
downplay ethnic cleansing and its policy of violence
against the people of Nagorny Karabakh. The
international community will recall Azerbaijan’s open
aggression, large-scale hostilities and war against
Nagorny Karabakh, in which it was also aided by
mercenaries closely linked to terrorist organizations.
These events ultimately claimed lives of tens of
thousands of civilians.
We believe that there is a serious basis for the
settlement of the Nagorny Karabakh problem if the
provisions contained in the declaration signed by the
Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia in
November 2008; the declaration of the Ministers for
Foreign Affairs of the co-chair countries of the OSCE
Minsk Group; and the declaration adopted by the
Ministers for Foreign Affairs of all 56 OSCE member
States in Helsinki in December, are met. Pursuant to
these documents, the parties must commit themselves
to the peaceful settlement of the problem through
negotiations based on the Madrid principles of the
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.
The basic principles around which negotiations
are currently being held are anchored in benchmark
codes of international law as incorporated in the
Charter of this Organization, the Helsinki Final Act and
other relevant international documents. The
international principles of the non-use and non-threat
of use of force, of the self-determination of peoples
and of territorial integrity are equally viable.
Some have long attempted to downplay the
importance of the notion of the self-determination of
peoples as a second-rate principle in the system of
international law and as inferior to that of territorial
integrity. I have to disappoint the advocates of double
standards. The right to self-determination is an
unconditional clause of international law; it is a
09-52604 14
principle of liberty and of the freedom of any people to
choose its future and fate, and to defend its collective
rights whenever those rights and that future are
jeopardized. If self-determination were a principle
inferior to territorial integrity, there would have been
only 52 Member States of the United Nations, instead
of the current 192.
Trust and accountability among neighbouring
States are guarantees of sustainable cooperation and
durable security in any region. We in the South
Caucasus have yet to witness that. Our region, in fact,
is among the most sensitive hot spots on the world’s
political map, overloaded with a plethora of security
threats and challenges. The region is devastated by
conflicts and inter-State tensions, dividing lines and
economic blockades. Closed borders and ruptured ties
have become the norm of life.
However, a courageous act and a courageous
response hold the promise of changing the situation for
the better. The process of the normalization of
Armenian-Turkish relations was begun in September
by the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan. That
initiative on his part — known as football
diplomacy — promises to bear fruit despite all
difficulties. Over the past year, with the help of our
Swiss mediators and other international partners, we
have made progress towards opening our shared
border, one of the last closed borders in Europe, and
the normalization of our relations with no
preconditions. We trust that the necessary political will
shall finally overcome the mentality of the past and
that the wisdom and courage necessary to taking the
last decisive steps will prevail.
We have been most encouraged by the support of
the international community. We are well aware of the
fundamental and positive implications of the
normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations and of the
opening of the border for the security and stability of
the region.
We must reinforce the bridges between United
Nations Member States, working out mutually
beneficial and comprehensive security and cooperation
plans. Our common objective should be the shaping of
an environment that is safe and prosperous for all. To
meet the political, economic, environmental and social
challenges, we have to jointly muster our efforts,
resources and political determination. Only together
can we successfully confront these challenges and push
forward the international development agenda.