Mideast situation – GA general debate – Verbatim record (excerpts)

Official Records

General Assembly

Fifty-ninth session

25th plenary meeting

Monday, 11 October 2004, 3 p.m.

New York

    The meeting was called to order at 3.05 p.m.

Agenda items 11 and 53 ( continued)

Report of the Security Council (A/59/2)

Questions of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and related matters

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  Mr. Requeijol Gual (Cuba) (spoke in Spanish ): This is the third time that a brief analytic summary is included in the annual report which, although still insufficient, marks a step forward towards the objective of having truly substantive reports on the work of the Security Council.

Without disregarding the value of the current report as part of the Council’s institutional memory, we still hope for a text with greater analytical content, which presents the political and legal grounds of, at least, the most important decisions the Council adopts.

We believe such a report should reflect not only what has been done, but also what has not been achieved and the reasons why this has occurred, particularly in cases where the Council has failed to act or when it has visibly lacked unity. Thus, there must be more analytical details on divided votes, especially in those cases where a negative vote of one of its permanent members was recorded. For instance, during the term under consideration, the veto was exercised on four occasions; three of them involved the United States voting against draft resolutions on the Palestinian question.

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  Mr. Hachani (Tunisia) (spoke in French ): …

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  Turning to the substance of the report of the Security Council, we see that the Council has not only responded to threats to international and regional peace and security, but has also dealt directly, firmly and with determination with a number of conflicts in Africa, inter alia by sending Council missions to the field. However, on the matter of the Middle East, the Council’s efforts have not lived up to expectations. Frustration over the repeated inability of the Council to become more involved in a settlement of the question of Palestine is a serious threat to the region and to the authority of the Security Council.

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  Mr. Mekdad (Syrian Arab Republic) (spoke in Arabic ): …

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  Undoubtedly, over the reporting period the Security Council employed strenuous efforts in dealing with the issues before it. It gave priority to regaining stability in conflict areas around the world. Perhaps more than anything else, African issues enjoyed greater attention by the Council, which we are pleased to note.

  The Council also increased the number of its open meetings to achieve greater transparency in its work and to give other Member States the opportunity to express their views on the issues before it.

  In that regard, it is regrettable that the Security Council has not been able to respond to the serious questions raised by the events and circumstances we witnessed over the reporting period and that have a bearing on its role and its effectiveness. Israeli practices in the occupied Palestinian territories demonstrate the Council’s inability at times to maintain international peace and security or to put an end to Israeli policies of aggression in the occupied Palestinian territories, which have been escalating owing to the impunity Israel enjoys within the Council.

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    The meeting rose at 6.10 p.m.

This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the interpretation of speeches delivered in the other languages. Corrections should be submitted to the original languages only. They should be incorporated in a copy of the record and sent under the signature of a member of the delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, room C-154A. Corrections will be issued after the end of the session in a consolidated corrigendum.