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Statement
by President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev at the 47,h session of the UN General Assembly October 5, 1992
First, I whould like to express our profound satisfaction, Sir, at your election to your high post, and we wish you every success in carrying out your duties as the President of the United Nations General Assembly at its current session.
At the preceding session the
The current session is no less important for us, since during this session the President of the
The world has now come close to the threshold beyond which the visible disturbing challenges of the future compel us to adopt a new quality of coordination, a new way to organize our joint efforts.
We must clarify what is the essence of this new and as yet unknown process, and we must master it within the context of our whole community, our continent, our region and our own country. These are the aspects on which I should like to focus Members attention.
The first aspect relates to the world community itself and the role of the United Nations in the world. At this session there has already emerged an understanding of the new realities, which must be defined in a new agenda for the entire world. It is no accident that this is the title of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghalfs well-known report. We believe that his concept of preventive diplomacy is an extremely timely, politically rational initiative, in the realization of which all members of the world community should become involved. In this connection I regard preventive diplomacy as a system of political and socio-economic measures designed to prevent hotbeds of potential by the conditions which are needed for maintaining social and political stability and are visible on the surface and by those proble ms the detection of whose very existence requires prognosticatory analysis in depth.
It is not difficult to understand that the question of borders is a powder-keg that could explode at any moment, and the explosion usually hurts not only those who are playing with fire but also many others who have only a very remote connection with the fuse-lighters. In my view, it is obvious that even one precedent in the revision of currently existing borders would cause a chain reaction of geopolitical disintegration with unforeseeable consequences.
In referring to the importance of the principle of the inviolability of State territory,I whould like to emphasize that the rights of national minorities today are often thought to be identical with the rights of nations to self-determination, extending even to the establishment of independent States. If we were to hold to such an approach, then, hypothetically speaking, thousands of economically weak sovereign States might arise all over the world. Such a situation would be a striking demonstration of turning a principle into a fetish, carrying it to the ultimate absurdity.
I am convinced that the world community, which today quite rightly gives so much attention to the rights of national minorities, should define clearly the criteria for such rights, in order to ensure that human rights and the rights of nations will triumph on the basis of the triumph of democracy and peace. Otherwise, under cover of a nation's right to self-determination, the integrity of any national State will be called into question, and the corrosive principle of separatism will go on without end.
At the same time, taking a look forward from the present day to the twenty-first century in a search for hotbeds of potential tension, I wish to draw the world community's attention, among other questions that give cause for great concern, to the problem of water in the Central Asian region, which in time might become a source of dangerous disputes in the very heart of the oldest continent. I am convinced that we need to speed up work now, not later, on the preparation of special United Nations projects that would provide for a gradual and effective solution to the problem of furnishing water resources to
I must point out that the decrease in geopolitical tension along East-West lines and the increasingly dangerous confrontation between North and South is a universally recognized fact. However, the emergence and exacerbation of the second confrontation do not decrease the timeliness of the first. The longstanding complexity of relations between East and West cannot be dissipated with the breakup of the
I emphasize that, in the final analysis, we are not talking about redistributing the income of the wealthiest 20 per cent for the benefit of the poor. The world inequality formula should be changed not by reducing the income of the wealthiest 20 per cent but increasing that of the poorest through organized assistance to help their countries develop. It may be worthwhile to think about redirecting United Nations efforts towards genuine conflict prevention and finding the root causes of conflicts. What practical steps can be taken in this regard?
I can understand the Secretary-General's concern over the main problem that impedes the United Nations peace-keeping efforts-the shortage of financial resources. It is obvious that the United Nations expenditures for the establishment, maintenance and enhancement of peace must be increased each year. But how can this be done?
As it is well known, until 1992, the United Nations expenditures on peacekeeping totaled approximately US $8.3 billion, not even 1 per cent of total annual defence expenditures in all countries at the end of the last decade, which was approximately 1 trillion dollars.
I propose that all countries should, as a demonstration of their good will, begin to set up a fund for the United Nations peacemaking efforts on the basis of the «one plus one» formula. This means that each State would begin to transfer 1 per cent of its defence budget to the fund and would increase its transfers by the same 1 per cent each year. Thus the amount allocated to peacemaking in 10 years would increase tenfold.
I think that the national security of every member of the world community would be by no means harmed but, on the contrary, actually strengthened by such an action. It is appropriate to recall here the Eastern story which tells of some people who held a contest of strength. One showed the power of his muscles and fists, another found strength in the hardness of his skull, the third in his fleetness of foot, the fourthin the sharpness of his tongue. But a wise man, remembering the heart, without which no strength is possible, suggested that they should compete in generosity. The generosity of each country will be what determines the degree to which my proposal is implemented - a sort of competition for the benefit of the whole world. The
The second aspect on which I whould like to dwell is the problem of peace and security in our continent of Asia or, more broadly, in
The useful experience of the activities of continental organizations in the
This can be countered with a well-known piece of Oriental wisdom: A journey of a thousand steps starts with the first step. It is by no means necessary to move towards a unified Asian structure and collective security in all these types of interaction at once. It is sufficient to start leveling out the heterogeneity in one area - for instance, in the military-political or economic sphere - and then look for joint approaches in other fields of cooperation. The move towards such a continental structure could take place in many steps and on a stage-by-stage basis. For example, it could go from bilateral relations through regional and continental structures and coalitions in particular types of cooperation, through the elaboration of confidence-building measures and collective security, as well as humanitarian, economic and cultural interaction, to common continental bodies for cooperation on a broad spectrum of problems.
Prospects for this process and its main stages might be as follows: The first stage would consist of preparatory work to organize and conduct the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-building Measures in Asia (CICMA). The approximate time-frame would be 1992 to 1994.
The second stage would involve accelerating the work of CICMA, increasing the number of its members, adapting it to the framework of a Conference on Security and Cooperation in Asia (CSCA) and forming pan-Asian structures of the CSCE type. The approximate time-frame could be 1994 to 1998.
The third stage would include defining the development of CSCA, strengthening-its permanent structures, interaction between CSCE and CSCA and the creation of transcontinental bodies in particular areas of cooperation. The approximate time-frame would be 1998 to 2000.
The fourth stage would consist of forming a unified transcontinental conference on security and cooperation in Eurasia and creating machinery for permanent interaction between the continental systems of collective security in Asia,Europe, Africa and the
We in
This position by no means presupposes any regional autarky. We are not going to lock ourselves within continental borders. On the contrary, in the interests of Asian countries and peoples, we shall collect the best of what was born in other parts of the world.
I am convinced that we must make a collective search for the best way to meet the challenges of the future and lay new foundations for mankind's existence in a world more integrated than ever before. Accordingly, I suggest that we should convene a special session or a United Nations conference to discuss the proble ms of the post-confrontation era, for it is the mission of the United Nations to play a decisive role in confirming new levels of organization in the international community. The United Nations itself should probably be reorganized to a certain extent,and this includes the question of the membership of the Security Council.
The third aspect, which we cannot fail to mention, concerns the events that are taking place in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
The fragile structure of our Commonwealth, set up at the end of the last year, does not yet fully take into account the age-old traditions of interaction between States and peoples in this part of
Realists in the CIS have no illusions as far as the $24 billion of assistance promised to
In this connection, I believe that the concept of early conflict detection and preventive diplomacy might find direct practical implementation in the former Soviet federation. I am referring primarily to strengthening the areas of stability that exist in the CIS and then gradually expanding their borders by reducing tensions in the areas of conflict. To that end, I propose setting up a regional centre, or a United Nations commission, on preventive diplomacy in
Lastly, I would like to discuss the vitally important issues of ecology and environmental protection. For
The
The other severe ecological problem we are suffering from involves the
By a decision of our Government, we have closed down this source of death, but tremendous amounts of resources will be needed to clean up this region, to cure those who have suffered and to ensure the safety of the children who will again be born here. The people of
Today, on 5 October, we celebrate the anniversary of the creation of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat). Recognizing its unquestionable importance,
The Kazakh people has a proverb, «Elu zhylda el zhana», which literally means, «The world becomes new every 50 years». The first half-century of the existence of the United Nations has been marked by confrontation between super-Powers and the burden of opposing military blocs. Now the world community has a historic opportunity to find in the form of the United Nations the means to bring about effective cooperation in the name of peace and progress. We must do our utmost to take full advantage of it.