KURDISTAN
NEWSLINE
UN General Assembly
President Receives KRG Representative
September
21, 2002
New
York, Sept. 18 – The President of the Fifty-seventh Session of
the United Nations General Assembly, Jan Kavan received the Kurdistan
Regional Government Representative in New York, Howar Ziad today.
The President outlined the current priorities of international
issues facing the world body and the road map for solving problems
which cause instability in the international system and which
are detrimental to the welfare and well being of the nations of
the world.
The KRG Representative
took the opportunity of conveying the warm greetings of the Kurdish
leader Jalal Talabani and the KRG Prime Minister Dr. Barham Salih
to the person of the President and the General Assembly: wishing
the U.N. institution success in achieving peace and security in
the world. The Representative also discussed the issues of Iraq
and its future, the challenges facing the people of Kurdistan
in safeguarding their identity and culture and their part in promoting
the goal of comprehensive democratic transformation of a pluralistic
and federal future Iraq. A brief outline was given to the President
of the tangible progress made by the Kurdistan region, since its
liberation in 1991, toward democratization and civic society,
in contrast to the previous decades of repressive totalitarian
rule. In addition current gross violations of United Nations Resolutions,
including Resolution 688, by the Iraqi regime were highlighted.
The ongoing ethnic cleansing and Arabization policies of the Baathist
regime are clearly a breach of basic human rights norms that should
be condemned by the international community.
RESOLUTION
688 (1991)
Adopted
by the Security Council at its 2982nd meeting on 5 April 1991
:
1.
Condemns the repression of the Iraqi civilian population in many
parts of Iraq, including most recently in Kurdish populated areas,
the consequences of which threaten international peace and security
in the region;
2.
Demands that Iraq, as a contribution to remove the threat to international
peace and security in the region, immediately end this repression
and express the hope in the same context that an open dialogue
will take place to ensure that the human and political rights
of all Iraqi citizens are respected;
3.
Insists that Iraq allow immediate access by international humanitarian
organizations to all those in need of assistance in all parts
of Iraq and to make available all necessary facilities for their
operations;
4.
Requests the Secretary-General to pursue his humanitarian efforts
in Iraq and to report forthwith, if appropriate on the basis of
a further mission to the region, on the plight of the Iraqi civilian
population, and in particular the Kurdish population, suffering
from the repression in all its forms inflicted by the Iraqi authorities;
5.
Requests further the Secretary-General to use all the resources
at his disposal, including those of the relevant United Nations
agencies, to address urgently the critical needs of the refugees
and displaced Iraqi population;
6.
Appeals to all Member States and to all humanitarian organizations
to contribute to these humanitarian relief efforts;
7.
Demands that Iraq cooperate with the Secretary-General to these
ends;
8.
Decides to remain seized of the matter.
The General
Assembly elects the President for a period of one year. To ensure
equitable geographical representation, the presidency of the Assembly
rotates each year among five groups of States: African, Asian,
Eastern European, Latin American and Caribbean, and Western European
and other States.
Mr. Jan Kavan,
President of the fifty-seventh session of the United Nations General
Assembly, brings to the post political skills built on a lifetime
of experience, both in the Czech Republic and throughout his 20
years of political exile in the United Kingdom. An advocate of
democracy and human rights, he served as the Czech Republic's
Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign and Security Policy from 1999
to 2002 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1998 to 2002.
He is currently a Deputy in the Czech Parliament.
Following the
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Mr. Kavan took
part in various forms of passive resistance and other political
protest activities against the occupation of his country and was
placed on the Communist Party's blacklist of "representatives
and exponents of the rightist movement". In the spring
of 1969 he was forced to emigrate to the United Kingdom, where
he lived in exile for the next twenty years, becoming a member
of the British Labour Party. Throughout this period, he assisted
Czech opposition activists -- in particular the human rights movement
known as Charter 77 -- which led to the loss of his Czechoslovak
citizenship in 1979.
On returning
to Prague from political exile in November 1989, Mr. Kavan joined
the Civic Forum, the principal political movement fighting for
democracy in Czechoslovakia during the so-called Velvet Revolution,
and was elected to its Coordinating Committee. In the country's
first free parliamentary elections in 44 years, he was elected,
in June 1990, to the Federal Assembly (Parliament) and became
a member of its Foreign Affairs Committee.
A leader of
the 1960s student movement in Prague, Mr. Kavan studied journalism
at Charles University, going on to study international relations
at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Later
he studied politics at the University
of
Reading.
