President of the fifty-fifth session of the General Assembly,

Secretary-General of the United Nations,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to congratulate you on your election to the presidency of this session of the General Assembly. We are confident that the senior posts you assumed in your country and the international respect you enjoy will facilitate your task in leading the deliberations of this session of the General Assembly of the United Nations to their desired objectives. I would also like to express our appreciation to the Foreign Minister of Namibia for the efforts he had exerted to lead the works of the previous session to a successful conclusion, without forgetting to thank the Secretary General of the United Nations Mr. Kofi Annan for the efforts he is exerting to maintain the principles and the aims of the Charter of the United Nations and for the distinguished role he had played in crystallizing the idea of convening the Millennium Summit last week; an unusual event in the history of the United Nations.

The historic declaration of the Millennium Summit stressed, without a shadow of doubt, the commitment of all Heads of State and Government of the world to the principles and objectives of the Charter of the United Nations. We believe that the absence of any essential difference between the Charter and the declaration is an important achievement in itself. Although this historic declaration issued by the Millennium Summit may be considered, in one way or another, a renewal of confidence in the United Nations Charter, particularly, as the world has witnessed in the last decade the greatest changes and the most dangerous challenges, the first conclusion that can be derived from this is that the principles and objectives adopted by nations and -peoples do not change a great deal according to time and place. It would be wrong to underestimate this conclusion and its meaning in the history of the United Nations. The end of the cold war did not stop nations and peoples of the world from denouncing and condemning crimes of aggression, ethnic cleansing, foreign occupation, oppression, extremism, injustice, corruption, racism and double standards. This also did not prevent these nations and peoples from using vocabulary that deserves praise such as freedom, peace, equality, solidarity, tolerance, human rights and social justice.

It is fortunate that the third world countries and poor countries embrace a huge number of people and possess a great heritage and plentiful natural resources which constitute a safety net for these countries who were able to contribute to maintaining the principles and objectives of the United Nations in the wording of the Millennium declaration. This explains to us why we do not see anything that might refer to the 'New World Order' either in the Millennium Summit Declaration or in any other official text. We do not also touch upon it except in practice where hegemony seems sometimes to have the upper hand in the international forum.

Strengthening the role of the United Nations was a major topic in the works of the Summit. This consolidation will be clear in reforming and expanding the Security Council that all member states consider as vitally important. Reformation should be accomplished through expanding the Security Council and giving a fair and balanced geographical representation as well as through gradually eliminating the right of Veto that contradicts the concept of democracy, particularly as the aim of it is to undermine the democratic process no more or less.

Peacekeeping operations of the United Nations have contributed to maintaining peace and finding the appropriate conditions to stop the deterioration of security conditions in many countries of the world. Throughout the past years, the Syrian Arab Republic has done everything it can to preserve the security and safety of UN peacekeeping personnel and to ensure that they carry out their missions and their mandates. But peacekeeping operations should be limited to implementing United Nations Resolutions and international legitimacy. The Security Council has to act to implement its resolutions so that the peacekeeping operations are not turned to imposing the Status Quo, which makes the achievement of a true peace a far-reaching objective.

Mr. President,

For the last ten years the peace process that was launched in Madrid has been losing its momentum, incentive and compass, year after year and day after day. The Security Council that has the ability and the international legitimacy to implement its decisions is absented from it till it has become a silent witness to the peace process in the Middle East reaching a dead end.

It is quite obvious to all those engaged in the peace process both inside and outside our region that the continued Israeli occupation of Arab territory that is coated once with the psychological need of Israel for security and some other time with superstitious myths, is the major obstacle in the path of peace. These futile claims, which have no resolution in actual reality, have caused the peace process to become an endless negotiating process with neither an end nor a horizon in sight.

At any rate, the serious and carefully considered negotiations which Syria has conducted have proven to the international community, at large, and to the Arabs in particular, two main things: First, Israel is neither desirous nor serious in pursuing a just and comprehensive peace according to United Nations resolutions. Second, Syria has the right to a full return of the entire Golan to the line of June 4, 1967 without concession or compromise.

We would like to add another fact known by the adversary as well as by friends which is that Syria who unreservedly supported every Arab and Palestinian right during all stages of peace talks, did not take these stands in order to embarrass anyone or to negotiate in the name of anyone, rather it was and still is, and for points of principles, committed to the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people for return and self determination as well as the establishment of their independent state on their sovereign land.

On that basis, Syria took its clear and firm stand in the meeting of the Jerusalem committee that was convened in Morocco at the end of last month in support of the rights of the Muslims and Arabs in a full Palestinian sovereignty over the Quds al Sharif.

Mr. President,

The Arabs are an ancient nation throughout history, and religious tolerance, as far as they are concerned, is a given. But tolerance is one thing and concession over one's right is something else. Territory and sovereignty are matters of national dignity that should never be compromised.

In the Millennium Summit all countries of the world considered that we are living in the age of international law, the United Nations Charter, international legitimacy and human rights and not in the age of the law of the jungle and futile religious claims to justify the usurpation of other peoples' lands by force.

This requires from the international community and the United Nations to take a more firm and non-selective stand in defending the Charter of the United Nations and the international law and in forcing Israel to respect international legitimacy and international conventions and to implement the resolutions of the United Nations.

The brotherly Lebanese people have achieved a historic achievement, thanks to the solidarity of the Lebanese People and state with the grand resistance against the Israeli occupation. Syria stood firmly with Lebanon to ensure the full implementation of resolution 425. Syria shall always stand by Lebanon and support him in all his national issues, especially the ones concerning the return of his entire territory and the return of its hostages held in Israeli jails. In this regard we urge the donor countries to fulfill their commitments to help Lebanon to reconstruct what Israel has ruined especially during its occupation of the South of Lebanon.

From this international fora Syria would like to stress anew its great concern about the territorial integrity of Iraq and calls for relieving the suffering of Iraq and ending the economic sanctions that only affected the Iraqi people. We also stand against any measures taken against Iraq outside United Nations resolutions so that these resolutions will preserve the credibility necessary for implementing them. We also deem it necessary to find a just solution for the human issue concerning the Kuwaiti Prisoners of War and others in a practical framework agreed upon between the Kuwaiti and Iraqi sides in order not to leave the subject of POWs and the missing ones without any human or political horizon that helps to reach a solution.

Syria also calls upon the Security Council for an ultimate and immediate uplifting of sanctions against Libya since Libya has delivered all its commitments as stated in SC resolutions and we stress our full support for the Libyan demands.

In view of the brotherly relations between Syria and the United Arab Emirates and the Islamic Republic of Iran we call upon the two neighboring countries to conduct discussions between them to resolve the dispute regarding the three islands in peaceful means, and on the basis of good neighborliness and mutual respect. Syria considers the establishment of a trilateral committee for cleaning the air and paving the way for direct negotiations between Iran and the UAE is a practical initiative that we hope will reach satisfactory conclusions for both sides.

We would like to welcome the achievement of the representative of Somalia in constituting the temporary Somali parliament and electing Mr. Abdul Kasim Salad Hussein, a President for Democratic Somalia, and in considering these two achievements the ma or pillars for the restoration of Somalis state institutions. We call upon the international community to double its efforts to offer immediate help that might enable Somalia to carry out the task of the reconstruction of Somalia.

The continued tragic situation in Afghanistan is a source of great concern for us. We are convinced that the Afghani problem cannot be solved except through stopping the fighting there and the entrance into negotiations, which aim to achieve national reconciliation and finding an acceptable and permanent political settlement that achieves security and stability for the Afghani people. Many Arab and Islamic countries fear that the continued aimless fighting in Afghanistan might lead to the undermining of the concept of state there and destroy its heritage and historic features.

Syria welcomes the discussions convened at the highest level in Pyongyang in June 2000 and expresses- the hope that this rapprochement between the two Koreas will contribute to achieving what the Korean people aspire to see of the unification of the Korean peninsula through peaceful means.

There was a consensus in the addresses delivered through the Millennium Summit and in the declaration resulting from it, to exert all possible efforts to rid humanity of humiliating conditions of extreme poverty in which more than a billion human beings live and to stay committed to basic human rights and country rights in development. We think that this would require the establishment of a new economic international order that is just and democratic and the finding of a multilateral commercial and financial system characterized by openness, justice and the non- discrimination and the best response to solve developmental problems, especially in the African continent, as well as giving a special preferential treatment to developing countries and facilitating investment, transfer of technology and the know-hows and the full and effective participation of the South on equal footing in taking decision at an international level. Although these requests seem far-reaching but, in the final result, they serve all parties and states rich and poor, North and South.

Mr. President,

We so much wished the just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East to have been achieved with the beginning of the twenty first century and with the ushering in of the new millennium. Nonetheless we remain optimistic in the future. This peace shall remain our historic choice and the choice of people who are moving towards a new dawn where peace, security and prosperity prevail for human beings everywhere.

Thank you.