With great pleasure I extend heartfelt congratulations
to my brother, His Excellency Mr. Ali Abdussalam
Treki, Secretary of African Union Affairs of the Libyan
Arab Jamahiriya, on his unanimous election to the high
office of President of the General Assembly at its sixty-
fourth session. His extensive diplomatic experience
and intimate knowledge of the United Nations will
undoubtedly enable him to conduct the work of this
session with great effectiveness.
I wish also to put on record my appreciation for
the efforts of the former President of the General
Assembly, Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann of
Nicaragua, for his able stewardship of the sixty-third
session of the General Assembly and for the many
enlightened proposals he made during his tenure to
enhance and develop the Organization.
My highest appreciation also goes to the
Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for his tireless
efforts to enhance the purposes and principles of the
Charter and to promote the role of the Organization
and enhance its efficiency in coping with new
developments and responding to the emerging needs of
our peoples.
Our belief in open-mindedness, tolerance,
diversity, non-violence and rejection of extremism
requires us first to free our minds of egoism and
prejudice in order to replace conflict with dialogue,
disagreements with consensus and violence with
persuasion, thus broadening our alliances and outreach
efforts. We must exert greater efforts to show tolerance
towards those who do not necessarily share our values
and ideas. Indeed, certain philosophical or
argumentative issues can be tackled and resolved only
if each party is open to the other, willing to coexist
with the other and ready to resist preconceived ideas
and stereotypes. The presence of common ground and
of mutual understanding can help to create a more
progressive and creative world and hence more secure,
based on tolerance, constructive dialogue and human
coexistence.
While the world has become a small village as
distances have been effectively abolished thanks to
technological advances and the communications
revolution that has erased barriers and frontiers, it is
still dominated by political antagonisms, as States
continue to pursue conflicting individual interests. This
requires us all to design pragmatic strategies for the
future that safeguard everyone’s interests. That can be
achieved only through mindsets capable of assimilating
these transformations and processing them to serve
humanity and to ensure international security and
stability.
It is clear that global security cannot be achieved
through the sole efforts of the super-Powers, because
the challenges we face are more serious, daunting and
more widespread than ever before. This requires a
broader global alliance of United Nations Member
States as well as the support of the entire United
Nations system in the interest of the international
community as a whole. At the same time, it requires
national strategies to address the challenges, problems
and issues through close and sustained coordination
among nations. The task that burdens us today requires
that we discuss all the issues threatening our world,
while taking into account the historical background and
the particular values, ideas and traditions of our
respective societies. At the same time, each party must
be ready to understand and appreciate the positions and
characteristics of the other and be ready to collectively
fight hatred and prejudice.
The Kingdom of Bahrain has always been a
melting pot of diverse civilizations, cultures, religions
and races and since time immemorial has adopted the
concept of tolerance and openness towards the other
and coexistence; thus, we firmly believe that finding
common ground between universal civilizations and
cultures and building a culture of peace among peoples
is necessary. In that context, the peaceful settlement of
conflicts is deeply rooted in our values and our
traditions, which are guided by the principles of our
Islamic faith.
The Arab-Israeli conflict of the past six decades
has had a great effect on our generation. It is a sad
legacy that has left behind misery and human suffering,
poisoned international and regional relations and
continues periodically to exacerbates tension, violence
and military confrontation in the Middle East. We have
tried repeatedly and in vain to find a solution to this
chronic conflict. To be sure, one conference after
another has been held, and initiative has followed
initiative. But we have been unable to deliver our
message to the minds, hearts and homes of the people
of the region. That is the essence of the proposal that
His Highness Shaikh Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa,
Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Bahrain, presented in
his article published in The Washington Post on
09-52598 14
16 July, which makes a meaningful contribution to the
adoption of a pragmatic approach to ending the
conflict. His Highness wrote:
“Our biggest mistake has been to assume that you
can simply switch peace on like a light bulb. The
reality is that peace is a process, contingent on a
good idea but also requiring a great deal of
campaigning — patiently and repeatedly targeting
all relevant parties.”
Careful examination of this argument reveals the
correct approach to addressing the Arab-Israeli
conflict, namely, directly and expeditiously
communicating our Arab Peace Initiative to the Israeli
people through their own information and news media.
In so doing, we will be in a better position to explore
the path to peace.
Today, wisdom requires that we use available
communications and media technology prudently and
with awareness in order to establish the channels and
structures that will enable us as leaders, Governments
and civil society to establish the will and momentum
necessary to create an environment conducive to
advancing the peace that we aspire to. Because today,
dialogue has become an omnipresent issue on the
global agenda of the United Nations and other
international forums, as shown by the many ongoing
dialogues, including the dialogue among civilizations,
dialogue of cultures and the interfaith dialogue. All
these processes aim at enhancing peaceful coexistence
between nations and peoples and represent the
principal course of action to eliminate the causes of
conflict, tension and discord.
The Middle East peace process requires that we
all exert greater political and diplomatic efforts in
order to achieve the two-State solution — Israel and
Palestine — as part of a comprehensive and just
settlement based on equal security for all the nations of
the Middle East region. We believe that the failure to
end this conflict is due simply to the lack of a
methodology based on justice and balance and to the
absence of a binding implementation mechanism. We
are all aware that the Arab side went to great lengths to
make it clear that it supports peace as an irreversible
strategic option.
The Arab Peace Initiative unequivocally
confirmed that position. We therefore expect the
international community, and particularly the most
influential leading Powers, to exert effective pressure
on Israel to freeze and eventually dismantle all
settlements established in the territories occupied in
1967, to ensure demarcation of the borders of the
Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital,
peacefully coexisting with Israel, and to withdraw from
all the occupied Syrian Golan and Lebanese territories,
in conformity with the relevant resolutions of
international legitimacy and the requirements of the
Road Map and the Arab Peace Initiative.
Here I would like to commend the speech of
President Barack Obama, delivered from this very
rostrum, which we consider a frame of reference for
the resumption of the Middle East peace process.
President Obama explicitly affirmed the need to
relaunch negotiations on final status issues — notably,
security for both Israelis and Palestinians, boundaries,
refugees and Jerusalem — rejected the continued
illegitimate Israeli settlement activity in Palestinian
territories and called for the creation of a contiguous
and viable Palestinian State.
Among the other challenges and concerns
confronting our region is the question of nuclear
proliferation in the Middle East and the Gulf region.
The Iranian nuclear programme is undoubtedly among
the causes for this common concern; nonetheless, it
should be dealt with in such a way as to spare our
region the threat of confrontation. This can best be
achieved through diplomatic means. It is in that spirit
that the Kingdom of Bahrain, pursuant to Security
Council resolution 1887 (2009), renews its call on the
international community to actively work towards
making the Middle East, including the Gulf region, a
zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of
mass destruction, thus ensuring the security and well-
being of the peoples of the region and the world at
large, and to call upon Israel to accede to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty in order to achieve its
universality. All nuclear facilities and activities in the
Middle East should be placed under International
Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, while
acknowledging the legitimate right of States to possess
nuclear technology for peaceful uses in the areas where
it has become vital for development and the
diversification of energy sources, in conformity with
relevant international agreements.
15 09-52598
Other important regional issues are also a matter
of concern to us. Foremost among these is the situation
in brotherly Iraq, whose sovereignty and territorial
integrity it is important to affirm, while not interfering
in its internal affairs. We should also condemn all
terrorist activities perpetrated against Iraq with a view
to destabilizing its security and rekindling sectarian
hatred there.
Also, in order to build confidence between the
Member States of the Gulf Cooperation Council and
Iran, it is imperative to reach a settlement on the
question of the occupied islands belonging to the
United Arab Emirates, through either direct
negotiations or referral to the International Court of
Justice. We also reaffirm the need for joint
international and regional efforts to assist brotherly
Yemen, under the supervision of the United Nations, in
coping with the heavy refugee burden and focusing on
its development efforts and the restoration of security
and stability throughout its territory. Similarly, we
stress the importance of preserving peace, stability and
unity in the brotherly Sudan and we look forward to
the cooperation of all relevant parties to resolve the
Darfur issue and to achieve the desired peace.
We urge the international community to shoulder
its responsibilities regarding security in Somalia,
whose internal troubles and fragile central Government
have led to the spread of maritime piracy in the Gulf of
Aden and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, much to the
detriment of international navigation and trade. Also,
the Kingdom of Bahrain once again reaffirms its
consistent position concerning the sovereignty of the
brotherly Kingdom of Morocco over the its entire
national territory and calls on the international
community to support the negotiation process initiated
by the Security Council, to maintain its momentum and
activate it.
With peace and development the twin concerns of
our world, it is only natural to feel frustration in the
face of the prevailing environmental degradation,
pandemics, desertification, poverty, water scarcity,
depletion of the ozone layer, climate change and the
world financial crisis. These challenges represent an
imminent threat both to our life now and to that of
future generations. It is therefore no overstatement to
say that in the twenty-first century our destinies are
intertwined, and that we need to redouble our
collective efforts to address these universal dangers
that daily threaten humanity and its health, food and
security.
In this regard, the Kingdom of Bahrain, in
cooperation with the United Nations and in the
presence of the Secretary-General, hosted in May the
launch of the 2009 Global Assessment Report on
Disaster Risk Reduction. The report deals with issues
pertaining to the protection of lives and property in
natural disaster situations related to global warming,
earthquakes, floods and rising sea levels. We hope that
the major industrial countries will play a key role in
forging an agreement at December’s Copenhagen
Climate Change Conference, with a view to curbing
harmful greenhouse gas emissions. It is our hope that
the necessary political will can be mustered to respond
to this threat to humanity and to make our world safer
and more sustainable.
In this context, the Kingdom of Bahrain, in its
capacity as a small island developing State, wishes to
express great concern at the evident causal relation
between climate change and rising sea levels, which
poses a serious threat to our world. We are in
agreement with the other small island developing
States in their concern over the adverse impact of the
increase in average global temperature.
In conclusion, the gravity that characterizes our
present session, as exemplified by the responsible
discussions in the first week, notably at the
22 September Summit on Climate Change and the
24 September Security Council summit (see S/PV.6181),
reconfirms our need to return to the spirit of the
Charter: that the United Nations is the principal forum
for multilateral cooperation to address a wide range of
contemporary issues. The United Nations as an
institution is not limited merely to the maintenance of
international peace and security. Rather, it is the
principal forum for the coordination of positions and
efforts aimed at addressing the challenges threatening
human beings and their environment, alleviating
poverty, controlling pandemics and settling conflicts
and wars through dialogue, negotiations and other
peaceful means in a world guided by tolerance,
peaceful coexistence and security for current and future
generations.