Uzbekistan

President Abdulla Shahid, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Heads of Delegations, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to sincerely congratulate Mr. Guterres on his reappointment to the post of Secretary-General. Today humankind is at a turning point in its development in which the nature of international relations is radically changing. Transnational threats to peace, security and sustainable development are worsening, climate change is intensifying, mass migration flows are increasing and traditional values are being lost. I believe firmly that in this difficult situation the role and importance of the United Nations and its specialized agencies are growing. In these important processes, which are linked to the fate of the whole world, it is the United Nations that is called on to continue to play a leading role, imbuing its activities with qualitatively new content. We support the efforts of the Secretary-General aimed at strengthening solidarity and unity in the international relations system and increasing the effectiveness and transparency of the Organization’s activities. Colleagues, Today the focus of our attention continues to be the sociopolitical as well as the socioeconomic consequences of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which has become a disaster on a planetary scale. We fully endorse the United Nations approach creating opportunities for equitable access to and equitable distribution of vaccines based on the principle of leaving no one behind. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to our foreign partners for the practical assistance they have provided within the framework of the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access, COVAX. We support further strengthening the coordinating role of the World Health Organization in effectively combating pandemics and ensuring the international recognition of vaccination results. The text of a code on voluntary commitments by States during a pandemic, developed by the Republic of Uzbekistan and distributed as an official document of the General Assembly, is our practical contribution to that work. Ladies and gentlemen, Today the large-scale and dynamic democratic reforms that have been carried out in our country in the past few years have become irreversible. Our democratic transformations are founded on the provision and protection of human rights, freedoms and legitimate interests. We are taking decisive steps to ensure freedom of speech and media, freedom of religion and belief, gender equality and interethnic harmony. For the first time in its history, Uzbekistan was elected a member of the Human Rights Council. In order to ensure that our reforms continue on their course, we have developed our Strategy for a New Uzbekistan. The Strategy’s essence lies in strengthening the role of civil-society institutions, protecting human rights, reducing poverty, providing every citizen with a guaranteed source of income and achieving sustainable environmental development. Our main goal is to become a country with an above-average per capita income by 2030. We should emphasize that this aim is in line with the Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We propose holding an international conference in Tashkent dedicated to the study of the problems of global economic recovery and best practices for reducing poverty in the post-COVID period. It is well known that our country successfully organized the World Youth Rights Conference on Involving Youth in Global Action. We are continuing our efforts in that direction by holding the Global Education Forum in Uzbekistan’s ancient city of Samarkand as part of the regular dialogues on human rights held there. Friends, In future we will continue to strengthen the new political atmosphere of mutual understanding and respect, good-neighbourliness and strategic partnership in the Central Asian region. Our primary task is transforming Central Asia into a prosperous and steadily developing region and a space of trust and friendship. We therefore consider it a priority to strengthen our cooperation with neighbouring and other nearby regions. We have taken the initiative to work for the adoption of a special General Assembly resolution on enhancing mutual connectivity between Central and South Asia. I want to emphasize once again that Afghanistan is an integral part of Central Asia. It is not just we, Afghanistan’s neighbours, that are interested in establishing peace and tranquillity there but the whole world. Uzbekistan has consistently been providing the Afghan people with every possible form of assistance. We recently opened the Uzbekistan-Afghan border and resumed deliveries to Afghanistan of essential products such as food supplies, petroleum products and electricity. In this current difficult time, we cannot abandon Afghanistan to isolation and leave it to deal with its enormous problems alone. As the Assembly is aware, last year, from this rostrum, we proposed creating a permanent action committee on Afghanistan at the United Nations. I believe firmly that the role of the United Nations regarding the Afghan question should be strengthened and that its voice should sound louder than ever. The growing threats, conflicts and transnational challenges in the world demand the further strengthening of international cooperation. That will undoubtedly be facilitated by the holding in Tashkent, in November of this year, of an international conference on the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Joint Action Plan within the framework of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. Within the framework of the event, held jointly with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the signing of a regional programme for the countries of Central Asia for the period from 2022 to 2025 will lay a solid foundation for work in this area. As a continuation of our efforts, we intend to work with UNODC to develop a joint anti-drug action plan encompassing the countries of Central and South Asia. Colleagues, Uzbekistan pays serious attention to the issues of combating climate change, protecting the environment and preserving biodiversity. That is our human duty to our current and future generations. I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to Member States for the General Assembly’s adoption in May of this year of resolution 75/278, declaring the Aral Sea a region of ecological innovations and technologies. We are determined to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and are taking concrete measures to switch to renewable energy sources. Specifically, by 2030 we plan to double the our economy’s energy efficiency, increase the share of renewable energy sources to 25 per cent and develop environmentally friendly transport. By 2025, we plan to bring into production new solar and wind power plants with a total capacity of 2,900 megawatts. In 2022, in the city of Nukus in the Aral Sea region, we intend to collaborate with the United Nations in holding a high-level international forum on green energy. We support the adoption of a global framework for biodiversity as soon as possible, and we are ready to hold one of the meetings of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in our country. Besides that, in order to discuss the priorities of global environmental policy in detail, we propose holding the sixth session of the high-level United Nations Environment Assembly in Uzbekistan under the auspices of the United Nations in 2023. Participants in the Assembly will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves directly with the difficult situation in the Aral Sea region, which has become the epicentre of an environmental disaster as a result of the drying up of the Aral Sea, and will be able to draw their own conclusions. We also intend to launch an initiative at the Assembly to develop a world environmental charter designed to lay the foundations for a new environmental policy for the United Nations. Ladies and gentlemen, Uzbekistan is ready to develop mutually beneficial, long-term and multifaceted partnerships with every country and global organization in the world. I am confident that we will continue to strengthen our close cooperation, aimed at ensuring safe and sustainable development and building a prosperous future. Thank you for your attention.