It is a
great pleasure to extend to you, Madam President, the
warmest congratulations of my delegation on your
election to the presidency of the sixty-first session. In
giving you their trust as the third woman to preside
over the General Assembly, the Member States wished
to recognize your talents as a skilled diplomat and to
pay tribute to the important contribution of your
country to achieving our noble ideals of freedom,
peace and prosperity in the world. My country, which
shares common values with yours, wishes you every
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success in fulfilling your mandate. I should also like to
commend the remarkable work done by your
predecessor, Mr. Jan Eliasson, who steered the work of
the sixtieth session with great wisdom and
effectiveness.
Another very pleasant duty is to convey to a
valuable son of Africa, Secretary-General Kofi Annan,
the highest appreciation of His Excellency General
Lansana Conté, President of the Republic, for his
eminent contribution to promoting the fundamental
values of the United Nations. At this time, when he is
getting ready to pass on the torch, I should like to
express to him our deepest gratitude.
Guinea also welcomes the admission of
Montenegro to the great family of the United Nations.
In September 2005 the General Assembly
adopted, as the outcome of a high-level meeting,
important decisions which are a road map for
implementing the Millennium Development Goals and
for reforming the Organization to adapt it to a changing
world. My delegation is pleased with the reforms
begun and the progress achieved. We welcome the
establishment of the Human Rights Council, an
appropriate tool to promote basic rights as well as good
national and international governance. Likewise, we
hope that the new Peacebuilding Commission will
make an important contribution to mobilizing the
necessary resources to help countries emerging from
conflict.
However, six decades after the creation of the
United Nations, consistent action by the Organization
in terms of development, humanitarian aid and the
environment is still an unfinished work. The reform of
the Secretariat’s management, which implies individual
and collective sacrifices, aims not only at reducing the
costs of the United Nations, but also at better
investment in order to enhance its effectiveness. To
move forward, the international community must
consolidate the reforms and extend them to the
principal organs of the Organization. Guinea firmly
supports this dynamic, which is the only thing that can
ensure the transparency, representativeness and
effectiveness of its bodies. This process depends, of
course, on the political will of all its Member States,
without exception.
In the maintenance of international peace and
security we see reasons for both satisfaction and
concern.
In Africa, and in particular the western part, my
delegation is happy that peace has been restored to
Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone and Liberia. However, the
balance in these States is still precarious. We therefore
urge the international community to strengthen its
cooperation with their democratically elected
Governments in order to strengthen peace and to
ensure the rapid recovery of their economies.
In Côte d’Ivoire the peace process is entering a
decisive phase, with the settlement of sensitive issues
related to the holding of upcoming free and fair
elections. Guinea encourages the parties to fully
cooperate in continued dialogue with a view to a
successful outcome to the crisis.
The significant progress made in the Great Lakes
region in recent months is encouraging.
The general elections held on 30 July in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo are a crucial stage
in the peace process. But keeping troops of the United
Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (MONUC) there, in support of Government
efforts, is still crucial to restoring State authority over
the entire national territory and, in particular, to
bringing peace to the eastern part of the country.
In Sudan, we greatly appreciate the efforts of the
international community, particularly the African
Union and regional leaders, to promote peace and
security in Darfur. The Abuja Peace Accord of May
2006 is a stepping stone towards the inclusive,
comprehensive agreement that is crucial to that
country’s stability.
In Somalia, my delegation encourages all the
parties concerned to favour the path of negotiation with
a view to restoring peace.
With regard to the Western Sahara, the Republic
of Guinea encourages the parties in conflict to
strengthen their cooperation with the Secretary-
General’s Personal Envoy in order to find a political
solution that is fair, lasting and mutually acceptable.
In the Middle East, Guinea regrets the fact that
Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza was not followed by
additional measures to put an end to the occupation of
Palestinian territory. It calls upon the parties to uphold
the relevant United Nations resolutions as well as the
Quartet road map for the creation of two States,
Palestinian and Israeli, with secure, internationally
recognized borders, living side by side in peace.
5 06-53609
With respect to the Israeli-Lebanese crisis,
Guinea greatly regrets the tragedy of the Lebanese
people. We support effective implementation of
Security Council resolution 1701 (2006), which
imposes a ceasefire and the deployment of a stronger
international force in southern Lebanon.
We stress the need to end the escalating violence
in Iraq, in order to guarantee the country’s stability and
successfully carry out national reconstruction.
In Asia, the Government of Guinea reaffirms its
attachment to the one-China principle. We also attach
great importance to the peaceful reunification of
Korea, and the continuation of efforts to preserve
peace, security and stability in the Korean peninsula.
The recommendations of the Working Group on
peacekeeping operations are a reference point for
taking up the challenges of peace. We welcome the
greater cooperation between the Secretariat and the
troop-contributing countries, which has made it
possible to better understand what is at stake, thus
favouring an increased contribution from Member
States. The Republic of Guinea regularly takes part in
peacekeeping operations, and we reaffirm our readiness
to enhance our contribution within the framework of
the new agreements and arrangements that will stem
from the reform process.
Guinea strongly condemns all forms and
manifestations of terrorism, the scourge threatening
international peace and security. We value the crucial
role played by the United Nations in fighting it, and
therefore support the Global Counter-Terrorism
Strategy adopted at the sixtieth session of the General
Assembly.
In the area of disarmament, Guinea condemns the
stalemate in the Conference on Disarmament. Nuclear
disarmament and non-proliferation are two inseparable
parts of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and bind all
parties, without exception.
The failure last July of the United Nations
Conference to Review Progress Made in the
Implementation of the Programme of Action to
Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in
Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects
should not in the least undermine our commitment to
combat the proliferation of such weapons and the illicit
trade in them. My country is in favour of establishing
an international, legally binding instrument dealing
with all the related issues. In this respect, the
transformation of the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) Moratorium into a
Convention on small arms reflects the determination of
our States to eradicate this other scourge. Its success
will depend upon the level of cooperation of member
States and also the commitment of its partners.
The 2005 Summit was a decisive step in
promoting the Millennium Development Goals. Guinea
has made an effort to put in place more ambitious
national development strategies. In this context, the
Government has drafted a national poverty reduction
strategy based on speeding up economic growth and
access to basic social services, as well as improving
governance. In order to implement this policy, the
Government and its development partners have begun
programmes and projects dealing with priority sectors,
such as education, health, integrated rural
development, infrastructure, the provision of water,
and strengthening human and institutional capacities.
In the same spirit, the drafting in February 2005
of the second follow-up report on the Millennium
Development Goal made it possible to assess the
progress made, note the shortcomings and outline the
prospects of achieving the Goals by 2015. We regard
this as an opportunity to urge our development partners
to swiftly implement the entire set of internationally
recognized development initiatives, including the goals
and objectives of the Programme of Action for the
Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2001-2010.
We reaffirm the urgent need to strengthen official
development assistance and to assure the long-term
viability of debt by cancelling all public and bilateral
debt of the most heavily indebted poor countries.
While condemning the impasse in negotiations of the
World Trade Organization’s Doha Round, my
delegation calls upon Member States to make a
collective effort to prevent a return to protectionism, a
factor in the deregulation of international economic
relations.
Guinea took part with great interest in the High-
Level Dialogue that the General Assembly has just
devoted to the question of international migration and
development. We reiterate our conviction that
continuation of this Dialogue within the framework of
the global consultative forum will help to identify ways
and means to better exploit the benefits of migration
for development, while mitigating its harmful effects.
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Although Guinea is not a country in conflict or
emerging from conflict, the midterm review of the
humanitarian appeal, “Guinea 2006”, points out,
“Today its social indicators have become similar to
those of countries emerging from a prolonged war.”
That confirms the very serious consequences of the
subregional instability that we have seen for more than
15 years in my country. In this respect, our
Government, through me, wishes to reiterate its appeal
for greater assistance in order to help the affected
regions to recover. We welcome the transformation of
the Central Emergency Revolving Fund into the
Central Emergency Response Fund. We hope that
within the common country programming process and
the United Nations Development Assistance
Framework, covering the period 2007-2011, the
funding gaps apparent in the course of various
humanitarian appeals will be filled and better
provisions for Guinea will be considered.
Furthermore, deeply concerned by child
trafficking, Guinea has signed with Mali and Côte
d’Ivoire a memorandum of understanding to prevent
this phenomenon and to improve border control.
In our common quest for a new international
order, this sixty-first session of the General Assembly
will be seen as one of important change for the United
Nations. The reforms that we have achieved will be the
beacons illuminating the path to a lasting peace and
development with greater solidarity. But we must also
maintain the impetus of reform and continue in our
common will to make the United Nations the
irreplaceable instrument to take up the enormous
challenges of peace, security, development and human
rights in the twenty-first century.