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Mr. president, Papua New Guinea comes to this assembly with profound respect for the charter of the United Nations and for the principles and purposes upon which this great institution was founded. The United Nations reminds us that whether we are big or small nations, rich or poor nations developed or developing, powerful or less powerful, we are all members of one international community. The challenges confronting humanity do not recognise the size of our economies, the strength of our militaries, or the boundaries on our map. No nation can address them alone. We must therefore continue to work together, respecting the sovereignty of all nations, upholding the international law and the United Nations Charter, resolving our differences peacefully and recognising that every nation, regardless of its size or economic strength or military might, has a voice and a place in this assembly. For Papua New Guinea and all the nations of the Pacific, multilateralism matters. The United Nations place provides a place rather, where small nations can sit alongside the largest, where voice can be heard and where we can work together on the common challenges facing humanity. And with this, I want to place on record Papua New Guinea's fullest acknowledgement on all speakers from the Pacific who have spoken, all leaders who spoke. We are fully, on behalf of Papua New Guinea, affirm all their points, the points that was raised. I also wish to acknowledge the Secretary General of United Nations, His Excellency Antonio Guterres as he approaches the completion of his tenure on behalf of the government and people of Papua New Guinea. I want to thank the Secretary General for his strong and consistent advocacy for humanity. At a time when our world has confronted war, displacement, poverty, inequality, climate change and many other challenges. He has consistently called for peace, human dignity, international cooperation and respect for the principles of United Nations. He has demonstrated the qualities of a global statesman. If there is anyone befitting of a Nobel Peace Award and label a global statesman, His Excellency Guterres is perhaps the leading person at this time. He has used his office to speak for humanity, including those voices that are often too dim and seemingly unheard. Secretary-General Guterres, on behalf of my 11 million people, Papua New Guinea, thank you for your service to the United Nations and to humanity. We remember fondly your three nights you stayed with us in the mountains and islands of Papua New Guinea. Thank you for being a strong voice of not just Papua New Guinea, but small nations, especially my small Pacific island nations. Your advocacy reminds us that beyond our national borders and political differences, cultures and beliefs, we belong to one human family. And we share one planet called the planet earth. Mr. president, it is in the spirit of common humanity that I wish to speak about human rights, human freedoms, and particularly freedom of conscience, thought, belief, and religion.
The General Assembly has adopted a resolution after resolution, while the Security Council and Human Rights Council have repeatedly addressed the situation. Let me be clear the search for peace and security in the Middle East is of profound importance, and the suffering of Palestinian and also Israeli civilians deserves serious and sustained consideration. Every civilian life matters, but we are applying the same. But are we applying the same standard of urgency when victims are elsewhere? Last year alone, over 4800 Christians were killed because of their religion. Millions of Christians around the world suffered discrimination and persecution. In Iran, the criminal theocratic regime has brutally murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens this year alone. After 1948, more than 1 million Jews fled or were expelled from Arab countries, many amid persecution and violence. Or consider Nigeria. For more than a decade, Nigerian communities have faced mass killings, kidnappings, the destruction of villages and places of worship, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people In return, this body produced a single Security Council resolution not 70, not 71. So we must ask if every civilian life matters. Why does our urgency seem so different from one crisis to another? This does not mean caring less about one crisis, but caring more consistently about all of them. We must also be willing to ask difficult questions about how Palestine is discussed and used politically. The majority position does not by itself determine what is right. The right of a democratic state and its people to defend themselves against terrorism must be recognized and upheld, not only in the words civilian suffering is tragic and must be addressed but it can never justify terrorism or the pursuit of political objectives through violence.
The law needs guardians, and this year we marked the 80th anniversary of the International Court of Justice. It settles legal disputes submitted to it by states peacefully and in accordance with international law. The International Criminal Court has a different mandate to fight impunity by prosecuting and trying individuals accused of the gravest international crimes. Their mandates differ. Their independence must be defended equally. Both courts rest on the same idea. Power cannot be its own judge. That remains true even when we dislike the rulings or proceedings. When judges or staff members of an international court face sanctions or pressure for carrying out the mandates, Belgium will always stand with them to protect them. But the promise of the law doesn't end in courtrooms or in relations between states. It concerns people, human rights, the right to think and speak freely, freedom of conscience and religion, and the freedom not to believe. It concerns the ability of every woman to decide the course of her own life and take her equal place in society. This ability to love the person we love without fear of prison, violence, of persecution. These freedoms belong to no single continent. They rest on an elementary conviction, a person's dignity doesn't depend on the sex, the origin, the sexual orientation or what a government thinks of them. Our societies are different, ladies and gentlemen. They will remain so. Human dignity doesn't require us to be alike in order to be equal. That conviction also guides our diplomacy. Dialogue is not approval.
We see it not only as a place that showcases the past, but as a house of knowledge, thought, and enlightenment. Today, in an era when social networks and artificial intelligence are spreading hatred and stereotypes at a rapid pace, it is important to remind this truth once again. Uzbekistan will consistently continue international cooperation aimed at strengthening dialogue between cultures and religions, enlightenment and tolerance. Dear President, ladies and gentlemen, all of us want to live in a world where human dignity is the highest priority.
Applying the approach of practical diplomacy, we are preparing an initiative under which it will strive, together with countries of the region and all interested parties, to reach an agreement and collective action to ensure the freedom and security of navigation in the Black Sea. We are convinced that this issue deserves the UN's attention as well. Bulgaria calls for the Black Sea to be transformed from a zone of heightened risk and threat into a zone of shared security, one of security, free transport, energy, trade, digital corridors, tourism. A zone in which different cultures, religions, and political systems can peacefully coexist. The Middle East also needs political solutions and de-escalation. A new cycle of destruction, humanitarian crisis, and violence cannot be allowed to take root in Gaza. Distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, today I commemorate Captain Marin Marinov, who lost his life in Gaza but who accomplished his humanitarian mission. It is crucial to create the conditions needed for stabilization and reconstruction, credible security assurances for Israel, and an effective Palestinian governance. Bulgaria condemns the terrorist acts of Hamas and insists on its complete and unconditional disarmament. Hamas has no place in the government of Gaza. We remain convinced that the only sustainable solution is one in which the two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace and security. This is the only way in which the two peoples can look forward to a decent life and a peaceful future. In the context of the developments in Iran, the security of global maritime routes, especially the route that passes through the Strait of Hormuz, have highlighted the global dimensions of this issue. As we underscored publicly several times in international fora, Bulgaria firmly supports the freedom and security of international maritime transport and calls for strict adherence with applicable international law and to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Security requires us to limit the risks posed by weapons of mass destruction and by their proliferation. Bulgaria remains determined to strengthen international non-proliferation, disarmament, and arms control architecture, as well as the three pillars of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Our vision is to create an economy that generates decent employment, attracts sustained investment, expands opportunities for our youth, women, and marginalized groups, amongst others, to strengthen their livelihoods. To this end, we continue to invest strategically in human capital, infrastructure, healthcare, education, agriculture, tourism, industrialization, and digital development, mining while positioning Eswatini effectively within regional and global value chains. We appeal to the UN for support towards enhancing the capacity of African countries in developing value addition on their natural resources, as well as creating a trading hub for precious and earth minerals and other commodities for the continent. In this regard, the African Continental Free Trade Area, HAFTA, provides a vital platform for African nations to move beyond raw material exports towards greater value addition, industrial processing, and intra-African trade so as to fulfill our vision. No country can achieve sustainable development while large segments of its population remain on the margins of the economic mainstream. Our citizens must not be viewed merely as beneficiaries of employment. They must be full participants as key pillars of our sustainable growth. We have created an inclusive environment for all our people, irrespective of their gender or religion, at the apex of our economic growth strategy.
These are all different fronts of a single, profound transformation. The world order that emerged after World War II is coming apart. It was an imperfect order. It did not prevent wars and justice or suffering. But today, the world balance has been disrupted, and history, which someone has declared has reached its final chapter, is once again moving at a galloping pace. But every race needs a finish line. Our task cannot be to stand and watch passively the fragmentation of our world, but it must be to build a new framework of rules, responsibility, and cooperation capable of governing change. Change that can happen only through political will, through dialogue among nations, through the awareness of peoples, and through the ability of multinational, multilateral institutions to rediscover a mission equal to the challenges of our time. The United Nations cannot simply record the divisions of today. It must have the ambition to imagine the future and recognize its limitations, overcome its paralysis, and reform its instruments without abandoning its deepest raison d'être: to be the place where conflict gives way to dialogue, confrontation to diplomacy, and fear to the search for shared solutions. The United Nations remains the most universal place for pursuing this aspiration, not because it's perfect, but because no other institution can bring together, around the same table, such different interests, cultures, religions, and visions of the world. It is precisely when the world is divided that the value of dialogue grows rather than diminishes.
Your excellencies, we see the cost of that neglect every day. In my region, from Lebanon to Yemen to Sudan, protracted conflict is deepening humanitarian suffering. And if anyone had any doubt that a crisis in our part of the world stays there, just look at the energy and grocery bills of ordinary families, from Mumbai to Madrid to Minnesota. The Iran war has shown how quickly instability can disrupt trade, investment and lives beyond the region. And then there is Gaza. For decades, I've stood before this assembly and warned of the dangers of leaving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict unresolved. But the international community chose to manage the conflict, not confront it. And every new Israeli violation was treated as temporary, diverting attention from the reality being created on the ground until temporary became permanent and permanent became policy. Of course, this is not the world's only injustice, but one of the world's longest running occupations forces a basic question if international law can be ignored for decades, then what exactly is that law worth and how can we enforce it if we won't even call out its violations? In Gaza, the evidence is overwhelming. In the first 300 days of the so-called cease fire, at least 300 Palestinian children were killed. Jordan's field hospitals have also been targeted. President Trump has pushed hard for peace and a path to end this war. But this Israeli government keeps moving the goalposts, continuing its attacks and destruction of civilian infrastructure, refusing to withdraw and squeezing Palestinians into barely a third of Gaza. This can no longer be dismissed as temporary military measures or a consequence of war. Accountability begins when we call things for what they are, an attempt to erase Palestinian life and impose a new territorial reality in Gaza. And while the world has been focused on Gaza, something extraordinarily dangerous is unfolding in the West Bank. Some may think we have seen this before settlements, violence, displacement, more of the same, but it is not. Nor is it simply an escalation. This is a fundamental shift. What was once a creeping process has exploded into something far more aggressive. Settler violence is rampant. Palestinians are being beaten, shot and terrorized, homes torched, property destroyed, families driven from their land and Israel is tightening its grip on more of the West Bank, seizing land, expanding settlements and pushing the Palestinians out. It is time to see what is happening for what it really is, because when the language is sanitized, the actions become normalized. Demolishing Palestinian homes to expand illegal settlements is not law enforcement. It is forcible transfer. Appropriating occupied land is not land registration. It is de facto annexation. A choking network of checkpoints and barriers is not security infrastructure. It is a system of subjugation. Systematic attacks on Palestinian communities are not settler unrest. The Israeli government criticizes the violence before the international audiences. They call those responsible a handful of rioters. They assure us that Israel is a country governed by law. Yet what's happening on the ground says otherwise. Israeli soldiers stand by as settlers attacked Palestinians, often protecting the attackers or joining them. They have blocked ambulances from reaching the injured. They have targeted international journalists who are trying to say the truth. And when soldiers watch, enable and sometimes even participate in violence against civilians, this is no longer about a handful of rioters. And the question is no longer whether a few extremists are breaking the law. The question is, is this the behavior of a democratic state governed by law? What is unfolding across the West Bank is not a series of isolated acts. It is elements of a single policy to compel an entire population to leave their land. And there is a name for that forced displacement, and that is a war crime. Your excellencies, if we are to resolve the Palestinian Israeli conflict, the world must abandon some illusions. The first is that Gaza and the West Bank are separate stories. They are not. They are two fronts of the same Israeli strategy. In both, Palestinians are being killed. In both, the reality on the ground is being remade. Gaza through destruction. The West Bank through de facto annexation. The objective is the same to make a viable Palestinian state impossible. Another illusion is that this Israeli leadership's rejection of Palestinian statehood is a position that might yet change. It is not. It is cemented on the ground. This government has been accelerating settlements and land seizures, but it began long before. Since Oslo, the map has changed piece by piece, settlement by settlement, and the most dangerous illusion that the Arab world never sought peace. The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 offered Israel normalization with 57 Arab and Muslim states, including Iran and Iraq at the time, in exchange for peace and Palestinian statehood. For over 20 years, that offer has stood. The obstacle hasn't been the absence of a partner for peace, but the absence of an Israeli government willing to accept it. This Israeli government understands the power of attention, and lately it has not liked the attention it's been getting. When confronted with evidence of wrongdoing, rather than change the course, it opts for distraction, discrediting its critics. It has also tried to cast this conflict as a war of religions Islam on one side, Judaism and Christianity on the other. It is not. This is about whether Palestinians, Muslims and Christians are entitled to the same rights as everyone else. Distractions will not fly anymore. People across the world are paying attention. The question now is, will we act? Because the world's political inaction is not for lack of options. So let's call it for what it is a choice. We have tools, sanctions, asset freezes, embargoes, diplomatic isolation, and we have a record of using them elsewhere. Yet with Israel, resolutions end where they began on paper. The result is a state without restraint. This government's sense of impunity has reached terrifying levels. It no longer feels compelled to ask, can we get away with this? It already knows the answer, and that is precisely why no one in this assembly should assume its ambitions stop at Palestine. This Israeli government's expansionist appetite is now a regional threat. And today Syria is the warning the international community is choosing not to see. Repeated incursions, creeping territorial expansion, new facts imposed on the ground, including around vital water resources, step by calculated step, Israel is testing how far it can go, and every time the international community looks away, Israel learns that it can go even further across borderlines and legal limits. For Jordan, there is no ambiguity, any threat to our northern border or our water security is a threat to our national security. Jordan will not look away. We will protect our security, our water and the interests of our people. And the question here is, if Israel continues its antagonistic approach in southern Syria, will the international community stand by and let that happen?
Through ensuring the political and economic empowerment of the people, we want to build a prosperous, self-reliant, welfare oriented, democratic state where everyone, irrespective of political affiliation, religion or ethnicity, can live with security and peace and with equal rights, honor and dignity Mr. president. Bangladesh continues to make progress in all areas, including democracy, human rights, good governance, accountability, political stability and the investment environment. The government is working to establish a safe and stable Bangladesh with a business and investment friendly environment. In today's democratic Bangladesh, we welcome partnership, innovation and both domestic and foreign investment.
Dear colleagues, human rights are at the heart of the society we are building at home and of the international order we promote abroad. Human dignity is universal and indivisible. That means protecting the rights and freedoms of every single person, combating discrimination and hate speech, and safeguarding the independent institutions, free media, and civil society on which our democratic societies depend. Montenegro is proud of its multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multicultural character. We understand that diversity is not a challenge to be managed. It is a strength to be protected. Montenegro sits where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Balkans. We are a small country shaped by different cultures, religions, and identities. Our history has taught us that living together cannot be taken for granted. It has to be renewed by every generation. And perhaps this is why we understand so well that trust is not the absence of differences. Trust is the ability to live with those differences without allowing them to become divisions. And at a time of growing polarization, societies do not become stronger by making everyone the same. They become stronger by building institutions in which every single citizen can recognize the same fairness and the same dignity. Excellencies, the choices we make today—choices on peace, technology, and climate action— will shape the lives of generations yet to come.
Mr. president, the theme of this session, Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: a United Nations that delivers for all, perfectly chimes with the concerns of those peoples aspiring to peace and progress, even while bombs and other devices of mass destruction are endlessly causing death and devastation in every corner of our planet. How can we restore trust and manage transformation in the world, so that the United Nations can effectively bring peace and good fortune to all peoples? How then, can we achieve this goal? I would recall that our previous session called upon us to act better together. That message remains just and it remains relevant, but it requires us to take stock to look at what has been accomplished and to acknowledge what has not been accomplished. Because trust is not built through more and more promises, but rather through their effective implementation for the benefit of the peoples. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, trust cannot be decreed. It is built, it is earned, and it requires truth and justice. How to restore trust when for decades, propaganda has been used to maintain the idea of a poor Africa condemned to do everything it is told to do to survive, thanks to the assistance of supposed international generosity, even while its resources, its riches are stolen and locked away for the benefit of other agendas. How to restore this trust when the international institutions that are supposed to protect us have become the tools of a world order in which some peoples count and others merely survive, and in which international law does not apply equally to all. What can we say of the crimes committed in Libya, in Iraq, in Palestine in Lebanon, in Cuba, in Venezuela, and in our Sahel, the Sahel, in the name of supposedly universal values, which nevertheless remain unpunished. Those crimes, even while sovereign nations are threatened with sanctions for simply having wanted to decide on their own fate. Niger, my country is following with deep concern the tragic situation in Palestine, particularly in Gaza where civilians are paying an unbearable human cost. We call for the effective protection of civilian populations, for unhindered humanitarian access, and for the pursuit of just and lasting peace. Niger reaffirms its support for a two state solution, allowing the State of Palestine and the State of Israel to live side by side in peace, security and dignity. How to restore trust when 81 years after San Francisco, Africa, with its more than around 1.5 billion inhabitants and its 54 states, still does not have a single permanent seat on the Security Council. Through me, Niger reaffirms its commitment to the Ezulwini Consensus and calls for this historic anomaly to no longer be the subject of sterile debates, repeated day after day to at long last, become subject to a full and concrete decision. Excellencies, Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, our Sahel is at war. It is in a war of liberation against a conspiracy aimed at recolonizing it. What is happening in the Sahel is not merely not simply an armed rebellion or a war of religion, nor is it the inevitable result of our own weaknesses, what some call terrorism in our region is the cynical machinery of recolonization dressed in the trappings of extremism.
