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Vartan Oskanian's Statement At UN GA Session

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  • Vartan Oskanian's Statement At UN GA Session

    VARTAN OSKANIAN'S STATEMENT AT UN GA SESSION

    Armenpress
    Sept 25 2006

    NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 25, ARMENPRESS: 'Madame President, It is a pleasure
    to congratulate you and to wish you a year that is relatively free
    of crises and catastrophes. In other words, a year not like the one
    we've just had during which my good friend Ian Eliasson successfully
    navigated through troubled waters.

    The year of turmoil, as he called it, included conflicts, as well
    as man-made and natural disasters that required our collective
    response. These challenges to our united will are becoming more
    numerous, more dangerous and more complex.

    Of all the events last year, the one which stood out most tragically
    was the war in Lebanon. There I believe we lost a great deal of
    credibility in the eyes of the peoples of the world who had a right
    to expect that political expediency would not prevail. We watched
    with great disappointment and dismay the political bickering within
    the Security Council and the reluctance to bring about an immediate
    ceasefire, even as the bombs were being dropped indiscriminately.

    When any world body or power loses moral authority, the effectiveness
    to undertake challenges which require collective response is
    undermined.

    In other areas, a united international community has succeeded. It
    has played a supportive role in the civilized process which brought
    Montenegro to this day and this body. Together, we created and
    empowered the Peace building Commission and the Human Rights Council
    - two bodies which hold great promise in delivering deeper and more
    purposeful engagement by a world community committed to building
    peace and protecting human rights.

    The most insipid and threatening challenges in the world remain those
    of poverty and hopelessness. When the world's leaders met six years
    ago, they decided that the UN was the ideal mechanism to confront
    the social ills facing our societies, they publicly accepted their
    combined responsibility in achieving accelerated and more even social
    and economic development. They said to the world that, together, we
    will channel international processes and multinational resources to
    tackle the most basic human needs. Thus, they placed the principle and
    potential of united action on the judgment block. Six years later,
    the world continues to watch in earnest to see if individual and
    regional interests can be rallied in striving for the common good.

    Madame President, We are faced with the same challenges, locally. In
    Armenia, we are encouraged and rewarded by our extensive reforms. These
    reforms are irreversible and already showing remarkable results.

    We are going to move now to second generation reforms in order
    to continue to register the successes of the last half decade:
    legislative and administrative strides forward, an open, liberal
    economy, double-digit growth.

    Encouraged by our own successes, this year we have determined to
    build on our course of economic recovery and target rural poverty. We
    are reminded of the remarkable promise made to the victims of global
    poverty in 2000: "To free our fellow men, women and children from the
    abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty." To do this at
    home, we will leverage the philanthropy of international organizations
    and friendly governments with the traditional generosity of our
    Diaspora to build and repair infrastructure, which is essential to
    facilitate and enable economic development. But infrastructure alone
    does not reduce poverty and remove unjust inequalities. Creating
    economic opportunities, teaching the necessary skills - these are
    essential to erase the deep development disparities that exist today
    between cities and rural areas.

    Madame President, we will begin in our border communities, because
    unlike other countries, where borders are points of interaction and
    activity, Armenia's borders to the east and the west remain closed. As
    a result, regional economic development suffers. But with Turkey, it
    is more than our economies that suffer. It is the dialogue between our
    two peoples that suffers. Turkey's insistence on keeping the border
    closed, on continuing to prevent direct contact and communication,
    freezes the memories of yesterday instead of creating new experiences
    to forge the memories of tomorrow. We continue to remain hopeful that
    Turkey will see that blocking relations until there is harmony and
    reciprocal understanding is really not a policy. On the contrary, it's
    an avoidance of a responsible policy to forge forward with regional
    cooperation at a time and in a region with growing global significance.

    Madame President, let me take a minute to reflect on Kosovo,
    as so many have done. We follow the Kosovo self-determination
    process very closely. We ourselves strongly support the process of
    self-determination for the population of Nagorno Karabakh. Yet, we
    don't draw parallels between these two or with any other conflicts. We
    believe that conflicts are all different and each must be decided on
    its own merits. While we do not look at the outcome of Kosovo as a
    precedent, on the other hand, a Kosovo decision cannot and should not
    result in the creation of obstacles to self-determination for others
    in order to pre-empt the accusation of precedence. Such a reverse
    reaction - to prevent or pre-empt others from achieving well-earned
    self-determination - is unacceptable.

    Efforts to do just that - by elevating territorial integrity above
    all other principles - are already underway, especially in this
    chamber. But this contradicts the lessons of history. There is a reason
    that the Helsinki Final Act enshrines self-determination as an equal
    principle. In international relations, just as in human relations,
    there are no absolute rights. There are also responsibilities. A state
    must earn the right to lead and govern. States have the responsibility
    to protect their citizens. A people choose the government which
    represents them. The people of Nagorno Karabakh chose long ago not to
    be represented by the government of Azerbaijan. They were the victims
    of state violence, they defended themselves, and succeeded against
    great odds, only to hear the state cry foul and claim sovereignty and
    territorial integrity. But the government of Azerbaijan has lost the
    moral right to even suggest providing for their security and their
    future, let alone to talk of custody of the people of Nagorno Karabakh.

    Azerbaijan did not behave responsibly or morally with the people
    of Nagorno Karabakh, who it considered to be its own citizens. They
    sanctioned massacres in urban areas, far from Nagorno Karabakh; they
    bombed and displaced more than 300,000 Armenians; they unleashed the
    military; and after they lost the war and accepted a ceasefire, they
    proceeded to destroy all traces of Armenians on their territories. In
    the most cynical expression of such irresponsibility, this last
    December, a decade after the fighting had stopped, they completed the
    final destruction and removal of thousands of massive hand-sculpted
    cross-stones - medieval Armenian tombstones elaborately carved and
    decorated.

    Such destruction, in an area with no Armenians, at a distance from
    Nagorno Karabakh and any conflict areas, is a callous demonstration
    that Azerbaijan's attitude toward tolerance, human values, cultural
    treasures, cooperation or even peace, has not changed.

    One cannot blame us for thinking that Azerbaijan is not ready or
    interested in a negotiated peace. Yet, having rejected the other
    two compromise solutions that have been proposed over the last 8
    years, they do not want to be accused of rejecting the peace plan on
    the table today. Therefore, they are using every means available -
    from state violence to international maneuvers - to try to bring the
    Armenians to do the rejecting.

    But Armenia is on record: we have agreed to each of the basic
    principles in the document that's on the table today. Yet, in order to
    give this or any document a chance, Azerbaijan can't think, or pretend
    to think, that there is still a military option. There isn't. The
    military option is a tried and failed option. Compromise and realism
    are the only real options. The path that Nagorno Karabakh has chosen
    for itself over these two decades is irreversible. It succeeded in
    ensuring its self-defense, it proceeded to set up self-governance
    mechanisms, and it controls its borders and its economy. Formalizing
    this process is a necessary step toward stability in our region.

    Dismissing, as Azerbaijan does, all that's happened in the last 20
    years and petulantly insisting that things must return to the way
    they were, is not just unrealistic, but disingenuous.

    Madame president, Nagorno Karabakh is not a cause.

    It is a place, an ancient place, a beautiful garden, with people who
    have earned the right to live in peace and without fear. We ask for
    nothing more. We expect nothing less.'

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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