Conferences

Celebrating The 70th Anniversary Of The United Nations

• Print
• Email

In the context of celebrating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations, the Afro Asian People's Peoples' Solidarity organization – AAPSO held on the eighth of January 2015, a seminar entitled "United Nations after seventy years" in Cairo attended by several Egyptian diplomats served in the United Nations , experts at international law and several Foreign Ambassadors.

Dr. Helmi Al Hadidy the president of the Afro Asian People's Solidarity organization and the the Egyptian Committee for Solidarity inaugurated the sessions of this seminar. He referred to the important role of the United Nations in establishing the principles of peace in the world, and its achievements during the seventy years and what hasn't been achieved until now.

He stressed on the necessity to find solution to the Palestinian issue, pointing out that the success of the United Nations depend on this issue, where the Palestinian people are still stateless, adding that the policy of double standards and political duality had led to the current deteriorated situation of the Palestine People.

Dr. / Nabil El Araby Secretary-General of the Arab League in his speech, pointed out that the United Nations is not a global government, but is a global non-governmental organization - as the situation in the Arab League - where decisions issued by the UN implemented by the states, not organizations.

He stressed that one of the most important objectives in the Charter of the United Nations, which was adopted in San Francisco in 1945, is the agreement on the independence of nations and stop wars.

Despite that the UN Charter including some shortcomings, such as it did not end the colonialism of France and Britain that adopted the guardianship system.

The decision of the UN General Assembly No. 1514, issued in 1960, is the one which ended colonialism, but Palestine still remained the only state that did not obtain its independence so far, despite the issuance of many other decisions that decided the right of the Palestinians in their own land, but Israel has not committed to the implementation of such decisions.

Now we are in the process of the establishment of a just peace project, ending occupation and establishing two states side by side. Regarding the amendment of the Charter, he explained that today everything became more complicated, such the five permanent members of the Security Council must agree on these amendments, and reducing the use of veto.

Ambassador / Hisham Badr, the assistant of Egyptian Foreign minster for international organizations, spoke on behalf of Sameh Shoukry Egyptian Foreign Minister, he pointed to the role of Egypt in the preparation of the Charter of the United Nations, and its regional role, especially the Middle East issues and the Palestinian issue, he added that Egypt had hosted many conferences concerning the Palestinian cause and most recently the Conference on Gaza reconstruction last October.

Regard to the region, Egypt had hosted the ministerial conference on Libya countries neighboring last August, as well as its attention to the Syrian and Iraqi files. Also Egypt is keen to support the peacekeeping forces, as one of the largest countries that supply those forces with troops from the army and police.

On the international and African scene, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry is in collaboration with the United Nations, as Egypt had hosted workshop on November 24 to 25, 2014 concluded in a number of recommendations, including ways to enhance and promote peace, and also keen to end several African countries from the armed conflicts.

Accordingly, Egypt is seeking to obtain the non-permanent membership of the Security Council for the period of 2016-2017, and this will help Egypt to play an effective role in the international decision making, as Egypt is keen to achieve international good will from the developing countries especially in Africa and Asia.

- Sung Aicoh the Ambassador of China in Egypt and the dean of the Asian diplomatic corps stressed that China's support the reform of the Security Council , and to be an integrated reform based on the protection of human rights and the interests of developing countries, and also to achieve peaceful coexistence, as stipulated in the Charter of the United Nations.

He also praised the last visit of the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to China, which commitment with the Chinese -Egyptian cooperation, build friendship and partnership relations, addition to discussing peace and security and the protection of the interests of the developing countries.

Professor Mufid Shehab, the legal expert and the former Minister, pointed out in case of asking about the success of the united nations in its missions, we must here realize that there are countries that don't accept to impose restrictions on its authority , even if these restrictions imposed by global international organizations, therefore we don't possess global international organization based on the principle of equality, but based on consensus of interest among the major powers.

With regard to the right of veto, he mentioned that the aim is not to let the major powers to monopolize opinion, but to share in the decision making process, so the problem is the attitudes of the major countries and not in the reform projects.

In the case of evaluation the United Nations Organization, we will find that the UN is better than the League of Nations, so it is eligible to remain and continue.

Ambassador / Nabil Fahmy, the former Egyptian Minister for foreign affairs pointing out that the system of consensus interests is the prevailing system in the international cooperation system, whereas we moved from the balance of interest to the balance of power according to the right of veto, the five states are now being used veto according to the political interests of their state.

the international community must adopt the philosophy of the balance interests, whereas we look to the international interest from a strategic perspective, not only economic, also called to refrain from the use of force, reform the Security Council mechanisms in terms of membership and then the right of using veto, and let the resolutions of Security Council for commitment and give it credibility. The Security Council must also determine its political priorities, and finally he stressed on the importance to allow Egypt obtain the membership of the Security Council next year.

Ambassador / Mohammed Ibrahim Shaker the Chairman of the Egyptian Council for Foreign affairs stressed on the importance of taking action to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, especially after the failure of the Conference on Disarmament in 1995, and before that an agreement to stop nuclear tests that have not come into effect so far, due to the attitudes of the major countries.

Dr / Ayman Salama the member of the Egyptian Council for foreign affairs , stressed that all the resolutions of the Security Council are commitment , as long as were not issued as recommendations. The United Nations is not an authoritarian organization, but an organization that seeks to achieve the interests of the peoples.

Regards the Palestinian issue, he pointed out that according to the Rome Statute, the Palestinian president went to the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israel for its crimes of aggression that had been committed against the Palestinians and the establishment of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, but the question that will still remain is: will there be a trial to the Israelis officials on their crimes?.

This seminar ended by the speech of Ambassador / Mahmoud Karem, who pointed out their many challenges facing the United Nations such as human rights, protection, and Democracy, also stressed the necessity of confronting terrorism through allowing the Western countries to amend its agenda of directing its alliances, and resolve the dispute on the budget of the United Nations, he also warned from the interpretation of international agreements that sometimes interpretented according to the interests of major states, and drawn the unfair role of Security Council regards weapons of mass destruction.