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Allow me first of all to sincerely congratulate you on election to the presidency of the fifty-fifth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations and to express confidence that under your skillful leadership the Assembly will cope successfully with all issues before it.

I would like also to commend the President of the previous session, Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, on his remarkable commitment to the success of the fifty-forth session as well as to the preparation of the Millennium Summit.

I take this opportunity to congratulate a new Member of our Organization -Tuvalu and to wish a successful start in the work of the current session.

Two weeks ago we witnessed a unique historic event- the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in which about one hundred and fifty Heads of State and Government took part. Outstanding ideas and proposals were voiced; the Declaration of the Summit was adopted. The time that we have to fulfill the commitments made by our leaders at the Millenium. Summit has begun to run out.

The 20th century is coming to an end. The mankind will recall this century as an epoque of outstanding contrasts the scientific-technological and spiritual-intellectual progress and the bloodshed of two world wars, the collapse of empires and the emergence of new sovereign states, the cold war and collective efforts for the sake of peace and stability. How will the world be in the approaching century?

End of the confrontation of two systems and the prevalence of ideas of democracy and free market should contribute to the formation of a world where the interests of all states are taken into account and genuine equal partnership is established. However, the analysis of development of international environment leads us to bitter conclusions that stereotypes of rivalry are still alive. We are living through a very uneasy period, when a single wrong step could blow up the situation and lead to the tragic return of the past. We have a long way to go to build a just and secure world order that is achievable only by joint efforts of all states- large and small, rich and poor, developed and developing.

Year 2001 is declared the United Nations Year of Dialogue Among Civilization. We are convinced that we should not miss an opportunity, by means of this dialogue, to consider together prospects how to resolve complex problems before the mankind.

The year 2001 will be remarkable also by another outstanding event. The Special Session of the UN General Assembly to review the outcomes of the World Summit for children will be held in next September. I believe there is no need to mention its significance. As a member of the Executive Council of UNICEF, my country is actively participating in the preparations to this important event.

Holding both of these events at the junction of the epoches is highly symbolic and should contribute to the achievement of a qualitatively new level of interaction among states towards the global progress.

Globalization is the main feature of the modem stage in the development of the world economy. It is a complex and objective process. Countries are concerned about the perspectives of this phenomenon. While opening up new possibilities for developing their economies, for ensuring their sustainable development and improving the welfare of their peoples, the globalization could also has tangible negative consequences for the states with the economies in transition and for the developing countries.

In this regard, I would like to underline that the United Nations has to utilize fuller its capasities, as well as the capasities of its specialized agencies to assist states in forseeing and early preventing possible negative consequences of the globalization and of the increasing interdependency of states. The United Nations is called upon to continue to play its key and effective role in strengthening the international economic cooperation and advising the states on all major issues of the global development.

Azerbaijan is making its contribution to the development of the process of globalization. Being located at the junction of Europe and Asia, having a diversified economy and rich natural resources, including hydrocarbons, my country serves as an effective link in the development of the East-West and North- South cooperation. Azerbaijan is actively participating in the projects of the development and transportation of hydrocarbon resources of the Caspian Sea to the international markets as well as in the project of restoration of the Great Silk Route which are of the global importance.

Presently Azerbaijan, together with a number of the Great Silk Route countries, is working on the new landmark project SilkSat to provide the countries of the Great Silk Route with a global satellite telecommunication system in addition to the existing communication lines. These projects are crucial to enhancing trade and industrial ties among the participating countries, to developing their economies and making them interactive, to strengthening their integration into the global world economy.

However, external threats and internal problems, outside pressures and involvement into the struggle for spheres of influence deprive young and fragile democracies of the opportunity to carry out freely the policy that would meet interests and expectations of their people, to strengthen and to improve their statehood and to deal with the peaceful development. Since their very inception, they have been forced to fight a hard battle for independence, sovereignty and the territorial integrity.

Being victims of aggression, seizures of territories and "ethnic cleansing", aggressive separatism and terrorism, these states rightfully expect from the United Nations most effective actions to create a just and secure world, and to protect principles of the UN Charter.

Unfortunately, the South Caucasus has become a region where all these problems, threats and risks have found their explicit manifestation. The main destabilizing factor of the situation in the south Caucasus has been aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, which has brought incalculable tragedies to millions of people.

As a result of the aggression, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 % of territories of Azerbaijan, carried out "ethnic cleansing" and ousted one million Azerbaijanis from their homes. In this connection, the United Nations Security Council adopted four resolutions which unequivocally reconfirmed sovereignty, the territorial integrity and inviolability of borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and demanded immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from all the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. However, from 1993 up to now those resolutions of the Security Council have remained dead letters.

Since 1992, the OSCE has been engaged in brokering the settlement of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but its activities have not been successful. Bilateral discussions between the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia continue, but, they also have not brought any results yet. The two countries have observed cease-fire for the last six years, but it is not a solution to the problem. We call on the United Nations to take all necessary measures to implement the resolutions of the Security Council.

No peace and security in the region could be achieved without settlement of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and other regional conflicts, as well as without removal of factors of external pressure including a foreign military presence. Bringing political integrity and neutrality to the South Caucasus would allow to establish normal relationship among states of the region and to ensure their harmonic integration into the world economic system.

We would like to extend our gratitude to organizations of the United Nations system and to donor countries for their assistance to Azerbaijani refugees and displaced persons who have been living in great distress for over eight years. Of critical importance to us is continuation of and increase in the humanitarian assistance until they return to their homes.

The United Nations is the key forum for coordination of the inter-state relations. Necessity of the significant efforts to enhance the Organization's effectiveness causes no anyone's doubt.

In recent years, under the leadership of the Secretary-General of the United Nations Mr. Kofi Annan serious evaluation of the resources and capacities of the United Nations as well as of the Organization's activities in the post-Cold War decade has been made. We have never heard before the self-criticism that was expressed in the reports on tragedies in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Rwanda. In the general context, we highly value and support the SecretaryGeneral's efforts aimed at reforming the United Nations.

The United Nations bears great responsibility for the fate of peace, and we place our hope on it. Serious and rational reforms should increase effectiveness of the Organization, and firstly, of the Security Council. Given the Council's significance, the question of adoption of reforming decisions by two thirds of the Member States has been affirmed by consensus resolution of the General Assembly. Azerbaijan fully supports such approach.

We also believe that the representation of the states of Asia, Africa and Latin America in the Security Council should be adequate to modem political realities. We have already expressed and reconfirm today our support for the election of Germany and Japan as permanent member of the Security Council. Besides, I would like to point out that one additional non-permanent seat should be allocated to the Eastern European regional group because of the unprecedented double increase in the membership of the Group. Otherwise, each country of the Eastern European Group can be elected a non- permanent member of the Security Council only once in 38 years.

We have studied with great interest the Brahimi report on the enhancement of the United Nations peacekeeping capacity. We would not like the ideas and recommendations contained in that outstanding report to remain dead letters.

We also hope that the International Criminal Court will become an effective organ to exercise justice on behalf of the international community upon criminals perpetrated the crime of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. Should the Court become a hostage to interests of different groups of states and the practice of double standards rather than to be guided by international legal norms equal for all states, the perpetrators will go unpunished.

Azerbaijan is interested in taking an active part in combating international terrorism, organized crime and illegal drug trafficking. The fight against these problems assuming larger scale can be effective only with concerted efforts of all countries at both the regional and the global levels.

In this connection, I would like to draw attention to a proposal of the States of the GUUAM Group, consisting of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and the Republic of Moldova, on the establishment of an International Anti-Terrorism Center,

Speaking of GUUAM in a wider context, I would like to stress that the meeting of the Heads of the GUUAM States that was held during the Millenium Summit could be characterized as a landmark in the history of the Group. The New York Memorandum adopted at the meeting confirms the orientation of the GUUAM States towards further developing the mutually beneficial multifaceted cooperation in different spheres.

Mr. President,

There is another urgent issue whose resolution can not be postponed. It is the difficult financial situation of our Organization, arisen as a result of delays of contibutions of the Member States to regular and peacekeeping budgets. The Member States should fulfill their financial obligations before the Organization in full, on time and without any conditions. However, our Delegation believes that time has come to reconsider the current scale of assessments for regular and peacekeeping budgets. We are ready to constructively cooperate with other delegations on this matter. Here we believe that the principle of capacity of states to pay should provide a basis for the future reform of the scale of assessments.

Mr. President,

Our Organization is designed to play a leading role in overcoming obstacles to global peace and progress. I would like to underline our collective responsibility for peace and security on our planet and express my confidence that the outcomes of the Millenium Summit and the entire fifty-fifth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations will become a reliable basis to achieving more stable and peaceful XXI century.

AZERBAIJAN