It is a great privilege and
honour for me to address the General Assembly, to
which people of the world look with high hopes and
expectations to find effective solutions to the multitude
of challenges and threats that spare no one.
First, let me congratulate you, Sir, on the
assumption of your duties as President of the General
Assembly at the sixty-fourth session and also express
my delegation’s appreciation to your predecessor, His
Excellency Mr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, for his
work during the sixty-third session.
Slovakia fully associates itself with the statement
delivered earlier by the Prime Minister of Sweden on
behalf of the European Union. I would like to
contribute to this debate with some additional remarks.
Slovakia is a keen believer in effective
multilateralism and the central role of the United
Nations in that regard. We therefore greatly welcome
the main theme of our deliberations during this general
debate, with a focus on achieving tangible results on
the three pillars of the work of the United Nations:
peace and security, human rights and development.
We welcome the attention that the Organization
has paid to the issue of climate change, as well as to
increasing food security and eliminating the negative
effects of the financial and economic crisis, especially
in the most vulnerable States and populations. Slovakia
calls for reaching an ambitious, balanced and
comprehensive agreement on climate change in
Copenhagen at the end of 2009 that will replace the
Kyoto Protocol. Also, we need to elaborate an action
plan and strengthen global strategies for food security
in the world. It is essential not to lose sight of the
Millennium Development Goals and to maintain our
efforts to achieve them by the year 2015.
We have in recent years invested considerable
effort in elaborating and implementing our own
concept of official development assistance, through a
number of bilateral and multilateral projects. The
western Balkans, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Africa
have been among our priority geographic areas in this
regard.
Slovakia’s commitment to the issues of economic
and social development prompted us to present our
candidature for membership of the United Nations
Economic and Social Council at the elections to be
held in the General Assembly later this year. We
appreciate the endorsement of our candidature by the
Group of Eastern European and other States and will
do our best to gain the trust and support of all of the
Organization’s Member States. Slovakia is committed
to serving as an active and engaged member of the
Economic and Social Council, and would like to
contribute tangibly to making that important United
Nations organ as relevant and as effective as possible.
The United Nations has achieved remarkable
results in peacekeeping over past decades. We
recognize its continued efforts to adapt peacekeeping
so that it can respond better to current and future
challenges. More emphasis should be put on ensuring
that peacekeepers and other United Nations actors on
the ground are properly equipped and trained,
including in the area of the so-called critical
capabilities. It is our belief that preventive diplomacy
should be used whenever possible in order to avoid
conflicts in the first place.
Slovakia continues to be actively engaged in
numerous peace and security endeavours of the
international community. We are currently participating
in international crisis-management operations under
United Nations command or Security Council mandate
in Afghanistan, Cyprus, Kosovo, Bosnia and
Herzegovina and the Middle East. We are doing our
best to contribute to peacekeeping, peacebuilding,
stabilization and reconstruction efforts in those parts of
the world and will continue to do so in the future.
In addition, Slovakia remains actively engaged in
the area of security sector reform, an issue that we
began promoting within the United Nations during our
non-permanent membership in the Security Council.
Slovakia, as the initiator and chair of the United
Nations Group of Friends of Security Sector Reform,
will continue working to ensure that the United
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Nations system is able to react in an adequate, timely
and systematic manner to the needs of Member States
relating to security sector reform. After a useful
African regional workshop, held in Cape Town as a
joint South African and Slovak project, we have now
teamed up with key partners, namely, Argentina and
Indonesia, in two other important regions, Latin
America and South-East Asia. The Buenos Aires
workshop will be held just a few days from now.
As I have already mentioned, we are glad to see
that significant progress has been achieved in
preventive diplomacy, conflict prevention and
mediation support. This has recently been
demonstrated, for example, in the role played by
United Nations mediation teams in helping to find
peaceful and negotiated solutions to crises in Kenya,
Zimbabwe, Madagascar and elsewhere. Slovakia will
contribute further to that work. We are, in this regard,
very pleased that the first United Nations Regional
Centre for Preventive Diplomacy, located in Central
Asia and led by a Slovak representative, has achieved
good results so far and has fully proved itself as a
meaningful and necessary project. We are convinced
that issues such as conflict prevention cannot be seen
in isolation. They are connected with respect for
human rights, protection of civilians, gender equality,
protection of children in armed conflict and so forth.
As a serving member of the United Nations Human
Rights Council, Slovakia works to promote universal
respect for the protection of human rights and
fundamental freedoms for all, at national and
international levels.
Among the key tools that the United Nations has
at its disposal for protecting those who are most
endangered and vulnerable is the concept of
responsibility to protect, one of the most important
achievements of the 2005 World Summit. We believe
the international community should focus more on the
protection of civilian populations from genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
Nor can we forget our obligation, under international
law, to prevent the incitement of those most serious
crimes, which should be referred to the International
Criminal Court, established for the purpose of ending
impunity for perpetrators of such crimes.
Much of the Organization’s ability to deal with
current threats and challenges depends on the existing
institutional framework. The United Nations Security
Council is at the centre of that framework. Slovakia is
a long-term advocate of enlarging the Security Council
in both of its membership categories. The composition
of an enlarged Security Council should better reflect
new global realities. Appropriate attention must also be
paid to the Council’s working methods. We are pleased
that the intergovernmental negotiations have begun and
believe that things will move forward in the interest of
making the Security Council a truly relevant and
efficient body.
The old saying “If you seek peace, prepare for
war” has resulted in an unprecedented arms race,
which in itself has become a source of fear and
insecurity. Slovakia is particularly concerned about the
risk of weapons of mass destruction and their means of
delivery falling into the hands of non-State actors,
especially terrorist groups. In this connection, Slovakia
is ready to work with all partners towards the
successful outcome of the 2010 Review Conference of
the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons, which should result in an enhanced
international nuclear non-proliferation regime. Our
priority is to outlaw nuclear testing and see the
Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty come into force.
Slovakia also calls for an early start to substantive
negotiations on an arms trade treaty, which is essential
for reducing the unacceptable human cost resulting
from the proliferation of conventional arms.
Slovakia, together with the other members of the
European Union, is deeply concerned about Iran’s
continued defiance despite its international obligations,
including the Security Council’s demands that it
suspend its nuclear activities. We note that Iran has
agreed to continue talks with the P5+1 group of the
five permanent members of the Security Council plus
Germany, and we call on Iran to commit to diplomatic
negotiations in order to restore the trust of the
international community and make real and urgently
needed progress. The deteriorating human rights
situation and the violent suppression of the popular
protests that erupted in Iran after the elections in June
is a cause of much concern to Slovakia. We have also
repeatedly and strongly condemned the nuclear test and
missile launches carried out by the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea. We call on North Korea to
reverse its position on the Non-Proliferation Treaty and
join the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Let me now turn to some regional issues that
Slovakia pays particular attention to. As a matter of
priority, Slovakia has been closely following
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developments in the western Balkans. We continue to
promote full respect for international law, including the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of States within
their internationally recognized borders. At the same
time, we welcome and support a peaceful and
constructive approach to seeking solutions to disputes.
We believe that the future of the entire region and its
people lies in the European perspective and that there
is no meaningful alternative to that.
Promotion of full respect for international law
and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States
within their internationally recognized borders is also
the principle that guides us in the case of Georgia.
Slovakia was very disappointed when, earlier this year,
the Security Council was unable to agree on extending
the mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission in
Georgia. The termination of the Mission complicates
the already unstable situation in the region, as well as
the security conditions for civilians in the conflict
zone. We firmly support a peaceful and lasting solution
to the conflict in Georgia and hope that the Geneva
talks will yield positive results.
In addition to participating in the United Nations
Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus operation on a long-
term basis, Slovakia has been actively engaged for
more than 20 years in the confidence-building process
between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot
political leaders, and we are committed to continuing
our active engagement. A combination of military and
development aid activities characterizes our long-term
active engagement in Afghanistan. Slovakia, as a
member of the International Security Assistance Force
operation, is helping to establish a secure and stable
environment in Afghanistan.
In conclusion, Slovakia hopes that the last year of
the first decade of this millennium will bring all the
States of the international community closer together in
order to overcome the negative consequences of the
financial and economic crisis, among others.
This represents a basic step towards the possible
settlement of many other conflicts and problems that
the international community is facing. In our view, we
have to intensify our efforts, in this regard, and adopt
appropriate measures on the local, regional and global
levels in the spirit of solidarity and common
responsibility. We strongly believe that the United
Nations and its specialized agencies must be directly
engaged in this process and guide the world for the
welfare of this generation and of those of the future.
I should like once again to reaffirm Slovakia’s
support for your work, which, through pursuing the
priorities of the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth
session, will address the main ills that pain the
international community today.