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Thursday, Septemper 03, 1998
"The Non-Alignment Movement (NAM), the Third World movement of no geographic, regional or ethnic boundaries, should provide the overall framework for the developing nations' political and economic action, and gear all its energy to safeguard the interests of its members," President Hosni Mubarak said Thursday. This came in President Mubarak’s address to the NAM summit, which was read out by Foreign Minister Amr Moussa. "The groupings of the third world and its various agencies - with no exception - have to consider cooperation among the movement’s members a top priority," the President said. "NAM should direct the north-south dialogue positively and effectively, and administer it as a dialogue between friends and not a confrontation between rivals," added the Egyptian leader. "This dialogue is now important than ever, and it is necessary for such dialogue to receive top priority," he said. "The movement should not isolate itself from developments within the industrialised nations, it should transcend the state of being influenced to being influentially effective," he added. The Non-Alignment Movement, President Mubarak said, should contribute to developing of a new framework of international relations, including UN reform and other crucial issues such as disarmament, terrorism and development. "NAM's active participation in all UN activities and decisions on an equal footing is a must and this will depend on the cooperation of all its members," he added. "This will require the activation of the movement’s coordination bureau to follow up the various activities," he said. "The world Organization is the natural gate to the new world order, and NAM must insist that the principles of the UN be an integral part of this order, based on justice and equity among nations," he added. President Mubarak said the NAM has a duty to contribute to the reform of the UN and its restructuring or else "we would be leaving the international organisation a prey to double standard and contradictory measures." "The development of the UN is not just adding a few seats here and there, but the process involves the establishment of a sound and harmonious structure to furnish the basis for democracy in international relations," he said. President Mubarak called on the non - aligned countries to adopt a firm stance on the phenomenon of terrorism which "has infiltrated many world societies and is posing a direct threat to their security and stability." President Mubarak reminded that Egypt hosted in February of this year a meeting of experts in terrorism from the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) which agreed on a framework for a draft treaty to combat international terrorism. President Mubarak did not have to remind the summiteers of the August 7 terrorist bombings in East Africa and the consequent casualities and massive material damage done. It is out of humanitarian and moral responsibility, which we must all shoulder, to protect human life and rights, that Egypt renews its call for holding an international conference at summit level and under the banner of the UN to lay down rules for the international community to deal with terrorism in a collective and organised way. The proposed summit, President Mubarak added, would also be charged with devising punitive and deterrent measures in dealing with governments and individuals proven to have been involved in planning and executing terrorist acts. "The NAM should throw its weight behind the key causes of concern to us all," President Mubarak said. "The Middle East peace process is one of such cause that the movement should be more involved in," he said. The enemies of peace, President Mubarak went on to say, are lying in wait and the anti-peace forces are running amok. "The path to peace is now strewn with blocks placed by extremist and occupation forces. And reneging on commitments has become the rule and honouring them the exception," he said. "It is now that the movement should step in to support the Palestinian people's right to self-determination and their decision to establish their independent state on their national soil in the West Bank and Gaza strip," urged President Mubarak. "The movement should also employ all its potentials towards effecting an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Syrian Golan and the unconditional withdrawal from south Lebanon," he added. "Over the past three decades, Egypt has been keeping up the call for creating a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East," President Mubarak said, adding that the Egyptian initiative was emanated from a conviction that an armament race in the region would sap peace efforts, seriously threaten regional stability and deprive peoples in the ME of a more prosperous future. Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, who read out President Mubarak’s address to the summit, invited the whole world to back up President Mubarak's call for convening an international conference, as soon as possible, on freeing our universe from nuclear and other mass destruction weapons. |
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