Mr. President,
On behalf of the Cyprus delegation, I wish to thank
the Co-Rapporteurs for their thorough report and the thought-provoking
resolution they have drafted, which contains important suggestions.
The subject we are debating is in fact a wide-ranging
subject pertaining to peace and war, international security, respect of
human rights and international law as well as the quality of human life.
We live in dangerous times, when a number of interacting factors
undermine world peace and threaten the lives of millions of people. It
is our duty, as representatives of the people, to confront these
challenges by upholding fundamental principles.
One of these principles is absolute respect of
international law, including a host of international human rights
instruments. Failure to safeguard this fundamental principle leads to
conflicts, aggression, and in certain cases, even to foreign occupation.
The draft resolution before us very rightly includes a call for the
immediate termination of all forms of occupation. In this connection, I
am compelled to refer to the situation in Cyprus, where its people,
Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots alike, have been experiencing the
bitter consequences of foreign occupation for three decades.
As a result of this unacceptable situation, thousands
of people remain refugees in their homeland and are forcibly prevented
from returning to their homes and properties. Colonization, which
constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Convention, continues unabated
and so is the destruction of the cultural heritage in the area under
occupation. At the same time the most fundamental human rights and
freedoms are being disregarded. All these illegalities take place in
clear breach of international law and the Charter and resolutions of the
United Nations, which brings me to the next point I want to stress.
We are experiencing a world climate in which certain
unilateral actions push the United Nations Organization to the sidelines
and undermine the whole system of collective security and inter-state
relations set up after the catastrophe of the Second World War. As
Parliamentarians, and as members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, we
have a paramount duty to uphold the role of the United Nations as well
as international law and to confront the phenomenon of double standards
that permeates the behaviour of certain states. And it needs hardly
stressing that perpetrators of crimes under international law should not
be allowed to act with impunity.
It is also our duty to confront decisively the
abhorrent rampage of terrorism which threatens to tear apart societies
as well as the international community. In doing so, however, due
consideration should be attributed to the root causes of terrorist
activity, which include human rights violations and the widening gap
between the rich and the poor of the world.
International peace and security are also threatened
by the presence of weapons of mass destruction. As parliamentarians, we
have to ensure that all international instruments pertaining to the
elimination or reduction of such weapons are signed and ratified by all
states, a task in which we can have a pivotal role.
Finally, Mr. President, international peace and
security can prevail if ordinary citizens are aware of their democratic
rights and responsibilities and are helped in developing a culture
conducive to peace, friendship between nations and dedicated to the
collective effort to fight racism and intolerance.
Thank you Mr. President.
September 2003
