Statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassymzhomart Tokaev at the High-Level Plenary Meeting of the sixtieth session of the United Nations General Assembly (UN Summit), New York, 15 September 2005

Mr. President,
Mr. Secretary-General,
Distinguished Heads of State,

This anniversary summit is a milestone event in the history of the United Nations. We are duty bound to adopt here decisions designed to radically improve the functioning of the United Nations. In our view, the reform of the United Nations should be geared, first and foremost, to the consolidation of the international community in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals.

 Kazakhstan believes that it is crucial to create necessary political and economic conditions to ensure inseparability and complementarity of the three main pillars of the modern world – development, freedom and peace. The United Nations should not tolerate such phenomena as misery and poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and spread of dangerous diseases, discrimination and terrorism. Regrettably, none of these human vices have been eradicated yet. To make things even worse, threats to peace, security and human health have grown manifold.

That is why we should focus our efforts on enhancing the effectiveness of our Organization. This task is all the more important in view of serious lapses in the work of the United Nations. As members of the community of nations, we should work to improve the image of the United Nations as the bastion of peoples’ hopes and aspirations. The quality of decisions taken by the United Nations should be improved, their implementation should be monitored more closely and human resources management should be enhanced. In this context, it is very important to strengthen the functions of the United Nations Secretariat.

Kazakhstan believes that a greater role and a higher status of the United Nations General Assembly as the main deliberative, decision-making and representative body of our Organization will promote genuine democracy in international relations.

As to the enlargement of the Security Council, we believe that this issue should be, ultimately, resolved on the basis of a broad international agreement in accordance with the principle of equitable geographical representation and taking into account the contribution of states concerned toward the development of the world economy and regional and global security.

Peacekeeping functions of the United Nations should be enhanced. Besides, our Organization should not watch from the sidelines efforts to save victims of major natural and man-made disasters.

The destiny of the United Nations is in our hands and that is why we should strive to promote mutual understanding, constructive approach, responsibility and competence.

These are the principles that have been always guiding Kazakhstan’s foreign policy. As the first state in the world to voluntarily close down its nuclear testing ground and give up its nuclear arsenal, Kazakhstan is a committed and consistent champion of an enhanced non-proliferation regime. We are deeply disturbed by the fact that, essentially, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is not working, as demonstrated by the outcome of the Fourth NPT Review Conference in New York. There should be no room for double standards in the approach to the issue of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons since any ambiguity in this matter may result in the spread of these deadly weapons, new conflicts and standoffs with potential use of weapons of mass destruction.

The efforts being undertaken at the global level to combat international terrorism are not sufficiently effective. The potential of the United Nations and relevant regional organizations in addressing this most dangerous threat to humanity today should be tapped to a fuller extent. In line with this conviction, last January, Kazakhstan provided a venue for the meeting of the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Security Council that was held away from Headquarters and attended by representatives of 40 international organizations. Last July, Astana hosted a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which adopted important decisions in this area. Kazakhstan is planning to accede to the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. We are working for an early adoption of a comprehensive convention against terrorism. It is our principled position that without joint efforts and effective practical actions we will not be able to win the war against international terrorism.

Kazakhstan has already come up with a proposal to set up a special body on regional organizations and welcomes the establishment of a relevant Committee. We believe that this constitutes only the first step in the process of establishing appropriate cooperation between the United Nations Secretariat and the organizations that are directly involved in tackling problems in relevant regions.

Speaking about the reform of the United Nations, we have to bear in mind that the world is becoming increasingly more diverse.  The problems that exist in Central Asia are specific to that region and yet they are also typical of the other parts of the world. Along with the other countries in Central Asia, Kazakhstan is making every effort to address such pressing challenges as international terrorism and religious extremism, illegal migration and drug trade, trafficking in human beings and shortages of water resources. Kazakhstan has been consistently working to develop economic cooperation and integration of the states of our region. We are also working on a concept of a Union of Central Asian States.

Despite all these difficulties and challenges, over the sixty years of its history, the United Nations has established itself in the international community as a universal organization that has no alternative. In the final analysis, we are the United Nations, and we alone determine the future of this Organization. Every country - big, medium-sized or small - has the right and the capacity to make its contribution toward the attainment of the goals set by the United Nations.

Having firmly embarked on the path of social and economic reforms, Kazakhstan has emerged as one of the most dynamically developing and successful states in the world. The government of Kazakhstan, acting on instructions of the head of state, has been implementing an unprecedented, in terms of its scope, social programme to raise the standards of living in the country. And yet our efforts in this area have not been duly recognized by the United Nations. We categorically disagree with how the United Nations experts calculate the human development index in our country. Such assessments, based on uncorroborated sources and data, only go to undermine the credibility of the United Nations in the eyes of the international community and breed mistrust towards our Organization.

My country is a universally recognized leader in Central Asia. President Nursultan Nazarbayev is confidently leading the country along the path of economic progress and genuine democracy. Kazakhstan cannot imagine a prosperous future for itself without close and active cooperation with the United Nations.

Thank you for your attention.

Date of issue: 2005-09-16