Sergei Martynov talks about 65th session of the UN General Assembly at a press-conference

unofficial translation

27 September

Sergei Martynov: On September 20–22, at the 65^th session of the UN General Assembly held in the UN Headquarters in New York the heads of state and government and other officials gathered to analyze the implementation of the so-called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ratified at the UN summit in 2000 and are to be realized by 2015.

Consequently, the 2010 summit examined the way the MDGs are being fulfilled. The participants discussed the reasons of poor success and failures. They also confirmed their commitments to realize the Development targets by 2015.

I would like to say that almost all delegations gave rather a pessimistic evaluation to the MDGs implementation. It was noted that the Goals were realized insufficiently and nonuniformly. Naturally, the previous years’ financial and economic crisis was called an obstacle not only for developing but also to developed countries. The latter are not able to help the first group of developing countries. Another significant difficulty was the ill-positioned policies of the leading world economies, their unpreparedness to dialogue equally and to take into account the developing countries’ position in their work.

Referring to the Development Goals realization I should mention that globally the most problematic situation is observed in implementing the following targets: unemployment rate reduction, maternal and children’s mortality reduction, and gender equality provision.

As for the details of any discussion on the issue, I should say that most of the countries paid special attention to the way the Goals were implemented in their own countries. Whereas just a few delegations (the representatives of the European Union, Group 77 and China, Belarus, Russia) concentrated on the key factors to achieve these Goals by 2015.

In particular, the emphasis was made on the necessity of developing partnership policies, introducing a new cooperation character between different countries, and creating conditions for favourable economic development through successful trade negotiations – the so-called Doha Round.

It should be mentioned that the EU countries alongside with confirming the need of new financial mechanisms, for Africa in particular, declared that they were going to work out and introduce within the EU a mechanism to track and secure the realization of the goals stated by the international community. The EU countries would supply 0.7 per cent of the Gross National Revenue (GNR) provided by main donor-states to implement the MDGs. The donor-help is at the average 0.31 per cent of the GNR. Only five countries (predominately from the Scandinavian region) show these figures.

The discussion also dealt with the fact that several countries, earlier called developing, began to say they would also help the Development targets’ realization. These are such countries as India, Brazil, Indonesia, and China which in the past belonged to developing countries but now, of course, it forms its own separate category.

At the summit, Belarus emphasized the necessity to use more actively a mechanism known as the global partnership, which appeared in the UN arsenal not so long ago. We already offered to use this instrument some three-four years ago. In that period it was somehow innovative. And it was one of our suggestions. Today, the UN starts applying the mechanism. Analyzing the tool’s abilities, we stressed its relative effectiveness.

As a proof of it, we proposed the Global Partnership against Slavery and Trafficking in Human Beings realized this year at Belarus’ initiative by ratifying the UN Global Plan of Action against Slavery and Human Traffic and by its further examining at the UN General Assembly special meeting. It was a successful realization of the initiative proposed by Belarus five years ago.

As long as we talk about Human Traffic, I would also like to mention that in New York we held a meeting of the so-called group of friends made up of Foreign Ministers to discuss the ways to struggle against Human Traffic. Belarus serves as a coordinator. By the end of the meeting, the already existing Plan was supported by adopting a special declaration. There, the participating sides stated the readiness to coordinate their actions to fulfill  Plan.

Returning to our participation in the discussions, I want to point out that Belarus stressed the necessity of creating a new global partnership which would be directed at the future generations’ prosperity. In particular, we think the initial preparatory steps should include the UN open debates on the issue of the future generations’ benefits. We also suggested that the UN shall take part in upbringing and promoting talented youth, in upbringing and promoting the new generation managers whose work would lead the society on a new modern level.

We suppose, if this global partnership is organized, by the way, some delegations have also supported it, so as any global partnership as we see it, it should include the cooperation of countries, international organizations, private businesses, and non-governmental organizations.

We also stated our confidence to fulfill all the Millennium Development Goals in Belarus by 2015.

The summit passed a final document including an important part underlining that the countries had confirmed their commitments to realize the MDGs by 2015, although there were some serious doubts. Actually, it formulated a concrete plan of actions.

The next stage of the UN General Assembly session was a general political discussion. While the first part of the summit, which I have already talked about, was dedicated to social-economic problems, the new stage dealt with political issues which were somehow forgotten when we discussed the Development goals.

Beyond the summit’s discussions, I would like to say that the Belarusian delegation took part in several important events. Namely, the issue of the Disarmament Conference initiation.

This is a relatively independent multilateral negotiations body which works in Geneva. This body deals with developing such successful programmes as the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention. However, for the last 10–12 years these programmes were poorly developed.

At the UN Secretary-General initiative, the delegations’ heads gathered to examine the problem, particularly, to analyze one of the reasons of such a situation. Belarus also participated in the discussions as we have already been the Conference’s members for about 20 years. Besides, it has limited membership. Moreover, recently we have presided at the Disarmament Conference and our presidency, aiming at confirming the Conference Plan of Action, was highly estimated by many countries.

The conference also handled the progress of Nuclear Test Ban Treaties universalization (we also participated in the discussions). There was the gathering dedicated to the Civilizations Alliance issue, of which Belarus is an active member as well.

By tradition, the General Assembly session included a lot of bilateral meetings mentioned, if I am not mistaken, in our press releases.

To sum everything up, I just want to note that alongside with all the gatherings there was one with the Deputy of the UN Secretary-General on the peacekeeping operations issue. This presents a considerable novelty, because last year the President of the Republic of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, made an appropriate decision as the UN Secretary-General had called on to take part in the UN peacekeeping activities. Today, for the first time ever in the Belarusian history we work in this direction. Supposedly, we start our participation with sending specialists to the UN peacekeeping missions in Lebanon. One our military surgeon already works there and we will try to give our specialists a possibility to take part in the UN Peacekeeping actions in medical, civil-police, and probably military spheres. This is a big and difficult job including necessary normative activities, specialists’ training, but our country will take care of it.

Russia Newspaper: Would you comment on the 0.7 per cent of the Gross National Revenue provided on the Development Goals? Have these goals been achieved in Belarus? Does Belarus cooperate to these ends with the EU countries, namely with the countries of the Baltic region?

Sergei Martynov: We do not have to provide 0.7 per cent, as first of all, the donor-countries are responsible for this target. Currently, Belarus is not a donor-state that is why we do not directly cooperate with other countries to achieve the goals. As a UN member-state, Belarus variously stimulates the donor-countries’ activities to achieve the target and to realize the 0.7 per cent so that it would meet the priorities of the countries which receive the assistance.

BelaPAN: Referring to the peacekeeping missions. As you have already mentioned, Lebanon will receive Belarusian specialists. Are you planning to help other countries?

Sergei Martynov: As for Lebanon, our military surgeon already works there. If I am not mistaken, we prepared other six specialists on civil and military issues, one staff officer and probably one physician. We are ready to send them. But currently, the conception of the UN Force in Lebanon is being reviewed and depending on the results we will see how many and what specialists will be needed. Then it will become clear who Belarus and other countries will send to Lebanon.

Together with the UN Secretariat we are studying the possibility of taking part in the UN Force in Cyprus and in a number of other operations.

Moreover, I would like to add that at the end of October the UN Secretariat representatives will visit Belarus to meet with our exporters to discuss possible participation of our country in the UN procurement activity to provide assistance to the peacekeeping missions. And it means we will try to supply both our specialists and goods.

Russia Newspaper: Could you comment in detail on the procurement activity? And may be you could say something about your work with Russia at the recent summit.

Sergei Martynov: As for the procurement activity, I cannot add many details only that till the present moment our exporters have not almost participated, at least directly, in supplying goods and services within the United Nations procurement activity. And we are trying to change this situation. This is a rather large system through which the UN buys a lot of goods: from diverse equipment to medical and humanitarian goods and services. Naturally, it is important to participate in this programme both for the UN and export extension purposes. We hope that the seminar conducted for our exporters by the UN representatives will give an impetus to a potential participation of Belarus in this sphere.

As for the work with Russia on the General Assembly issues, according to our foreign policy cooperation programme, (we have a two-year plan of such consultations) experts and department heads meet regularly in the General Assembly to define this cooperation. This year was not an exception. Moreover, similar coordination process with consultations exists within the CIS. Besides, traditionally, the Foreign Ministers of the CSTO meet in New York to coordinate their positions both on the General Assembly issues and other future international activities. In particular, at the previous week’s gathering in New York, we also discussed the forthcoming OSCE summit held in December in Astana.