I too want to thank Under-Secretary-General Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Ms. Angela King and Ms. Noleen Heyzer for their statements.
I want to begin by saying that Under-Secretary- General Jean-Marie Guéhenno was a very brave man when he began his remarks by saying that he had encountered some scepticism. …
Singapore deplores in the strongest terms all acts of violence and terror that target civilians, and we call for an end to extreme acts by both sides. The latest Israeli attack in a residential area in Gaza, resulting in the death and
injury of innocent Palestinian civilians, is not only highly reg…
Mr. President, I have a text in front of me, but, as you just said, Ambassador Brahimi has put across some very important messages that we need to respond to. So I will deviate from my text a little, and I apologize if my remarks may seem a little choppy as a consequence. But there are basically thr…
We welcome your decision, Mr. President, to convene this open meeting. The high level of participation and interest in this debate confirms the wisdom of having such an open discussion.
Our stated purpose here is to discuss the renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herz…
This morning my staff had a meeting to discuss what I should say at this morning’s session. The instructions they gave to me were that I should give a very short speech based on three Cs. The three Cs are commend, commitment and criteria. But after having a discussion with Ambassador Greenstock on t…
Let me begin by thanking Under-Secretary-General Jean-Marie Guéhenno for his usual comprehensive briefing, which has brought us up to date on the situation in Kosovo.
It is no secret that our delegation has from time to time expressed reservations about having regular public meetings on Kosovo, if …
It is not customary for the Secretary-General to appear at regular reviews of the East Timor issue; I think his presence here earlier this morning was a very powerful demonstration of the strong support that he and the United Nations have given East Timor — support which has, frankly, brought us to …
Allow me at the outset to say that my delegation would like to associate itself fully with the statement that will be made later by the Permanent Representative of Cambodia on behalf of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
I am also very pleased to be the first of many, hopefully, t…
We have listened carefully to the debate so far. Having done so, we are struck by three paradoxes, the first of which is that this weekend, as several speakers have commented, is one of the world’s holiest weekends: Passover, Good Friday, Easter. This holy weekend is being celebrated at one of the w…
I would like to begin by thanking Mr. Hédi Annabi for the very valuable comprehensive briefing that he gave us, and I certainly want to join our colleagues in welcoming the two positive developments relating to self-government and the transfer of the prisoners back to Kosovo.
We would also like to …
I, too, would like to join you, Sir, in warmly welcoming Mr. Yusuf Hassan Ibrahim, the Foreign Minister of Somalia, and to thank him for the rather comprehensive statement
that he gave us in the private meeting earlier, which I found to be very helpful.
I also want to congratulate you for putting …
The Council, Sir, is greatly honoured that this meeting is being personally chaired by the Foreign Minister of Norway, because this demonstrates your country’s commitment to this issue and to other issues in the Horn of Africa. Certainly, we would like to begin by congratulating you on your initiati…
Once again, the Security Council is meeting on the situation in the Middle East, as the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians shifts to a deeper and more dangerous level.
Singapore is deeply distressed that the escalation of violence has continued unabated, resulting in the senseless loss of s…
Before I begin my prepared text, I would like to make a few preliminary observations.
We began our discussions this morning in this Chamber with a very important meeting with Mr. Karzai, the head of the Interim Authority in Afghanistan. It is no secret that the United Nations faces formidable chall…
We, too, would like to begin by thanking Under-Secretary-General Jean-Marie Guéhenno for his usual comprehensive briefing. We would also like to thank the Secretary- General for his report and, like our colleagues, we would also like to pay a special tribute to Mr. Hans Haekkerup, who demonstrated w…
Let me join our colleagues in offering you, Mr. President, our warmest congratulations on a successful presidency. We also want to thank you for this wonderful gift of the songs of Habib Koite, who we understand is Mali’s greatest singer.
We also agree with your opening observation that these wrap-…
This afternoon we are going to have a wrap-up meeting on the work of the month, but since it is likely to be the last meeting of the year we thought it might be useful to review the successes and the failures of the year as well. We were going to say this afternoon that Angola was clearly not
a suc…
This is just a procedural suggestion that I hope our colleagues will agree with. I thought that, as a gesture of courtesy, we might allow the departing members of the Council to speak first, in alphabetical order. If the President agrees with my suggestion, after we have heard the departing members …
First, a quick personal note of thanks to you, Mr. President. I have just received the revised programme for the month, and I am glad that you have agreed to our suggestion to move the wrap-up session from 27 to 21 December. As we said, that is an important occasion for the members who are leaving t…
The hour is late. I will try to be quick. In some ways, that is easier for us, because many of the key points that we had wanted to make have already been made by several speakers today. They include the fact that the plundering of the resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is unacceptabl…
