FM to open ministerial meet today
Web posted at: 6/13/2005 2:26:13
Source ::: QNA/Agencies
Second South Summit begins
Doha: Reform of the United Nations and partnerships among
developing countries top the agenda at the Second Group of 77
and China South Summit that started here yesterday with an
expert-level meeting.
Senior officials representing over 130 member states of the G-77
and China opened their meeting at Sheraton Doha Hotel to endorse
the agenda and a plan of action for South-South cooperation.
The agenda and the plan will be tabled at the group’s foreign
ministers meeting scheduled to be held today. The meeting will
be opened by the First Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister H E
Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani.
On the sidelines of the meeting, the Non-Aligned Movement will
hold a ministerial meeting to be chaired by Malaysia. Heads of
states and governments will attend a second round of high level
talks on the third and fourth day of the forum. Heads of state
will then get together for two days on Thursday and Friday.
Some 60 heads of state in addition to some 800 journalists, will
be among 5,000 visitors flocking to Doha to attend the summit,
where British Prime Minister Tony Blair and UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan are among the dignitaries invited. Luxembourgs prime
minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, is attending in his capacity as
president of the European Union.
UAE President H H Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan will lead
his country’s delegation to the summit.
In his inaugural address to the day-long meeting, Qatar’s
Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Deputy
Chairman of the Second South Summit Organising Committee,
Ambassador H E Nassir Abdulaziz Al Nasser welcomed the delegates
of the 132 members countries of the G-77 and China.
A great deal of work has already been accomplished in New York
ahead of the summit, yet there is still a host of outstanding
issues unresolved and need to be tackled, Al Nasser said,
expressing hope that all pending issues would be adequately
addressed through collective cooperation.
Al Nasser said the immediate goal of the meeting is to prepare
the ground for the forthcoming debates by the successive
meetings at the foreign ministers and heads of state and
government levels. These discussions should be placed within the
appropriate political and economic context of the global changes
that has taken place since the Havana summit in April 2000.
The outcome of this debate would surely influence the Doha
Declaration and the plan of action, Al Nasser said. He
emphasised the need to finalise the Doha plan of action and to
strengthen its content which aims at achieving practical goals.
Al Nasser asserted that the South Summit of Doha should send a
clear message to the international community regarding
international cooperation for development, especially towards
the crucial issues of trade and financing development, to the
millennium summit in September where the world leaders will
evaluate and assess the achievements of the past five years in
attaining the millennium development goals and regarding
multilateralism, especially the role of the United Nations.
The summit provides the least developed countries to seek better
and more favourable partnerships with rich countries, especially
the most industrialised nations of the north by lending support
to their negotiating positions, Al Nasser said.
Al Nasser said that the working groups would basically agree on
a common version of both the Doha Declaration and the Doha plan
of action. The political document would address some major
international matters already tabled by the United Nations, such
as the Palestine question, Iraq and Somalia, Al Nasser said,
noting that these topics would be subject of further debate by
the foreign ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement (Nam) at their
meeting today. Nam agenda is purely or almost purely political,
he said.
Asked whether the Doha Declaration would lend support to Qatar’s
bid to have a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council, Al
Nasser asserted that this matter has been already settled and
Qatar’s candidature to a two-year membership of the United
Nations Security Council has already won the support of the
Asian group.
Qatar enjoys the support of so many world countries, Al Nasser
said, noting that Doha’s decision to host the Second South
Summit has nothing to do with its candidacy to UN membership.
Qatar’s candidacy to the two-year membership of the Security
Council has already won enough support and seems to be secured,
Al Nasser said, expressing confidence that Qatar would have a
greatest majority of supporters when this issue is referred to
voting in October.
Blair is expected to address the summit on behalf of the Group
of Eight industrialised nations, which reached an historic
agreement on Saturday to write off $40bn of debt owed by the
worlds poorest nations. About the initiative of British Prime
Minister Tony Blair to write off the debts of poorer countries,
Al Nasser hailed the move as ‘excellent and constructive,’ and
expressed hope that other north and rich countries would follow
suit.
He expressed hope that the British prime minister’s presence in
the Doha summit would reflect positively on these meetings,
which would hopefully work out a collective plan of action in
support of the LDCs (least developed countries) in their bid to
combat poverty and ensure education to all.
The G-77, which was founded in 1964, is the largest Third World
coalition. Officials attending the summit have said that one of
their aims is to agree on at least the basics of UN reform
should take into account the interests of developing countries.
Two G-77 members, India and Brazil, are vying for permanent
seats on an expanded UN Security Council.
Analysts had their own views. “Nations are not measured by their
size, but by their role... and Qatar is playing an influential
role at the economic and military levels,” said academic and
political analyst Mohammad Al Misfer. “Qatar’s active role has
provoked the jealousy, not to say resentment, of those who are
no longer key players in the region,” said Misfer.
