At General Assembly, Viet Nam urges UN to strengthen global peace, security

In his address to the General Assembly today, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh of Viet Nam called on the United Nations and its Member States to lay a firm and long-term foundation for peace, security and development, adding that only peace and development together could put the international community on the path towards a prosperous world.

“Peace and security are prerequisites for sustainable development,” Mr. Pham told the gathered delegates at UN Headquarters in New York during the Assembly’s annual General Debate.

“The UN and its Member States must therefore live up to their responsibility to strengthen international peace and security, prevent potential conflicts and find solutions to on-going hostilities,” he declared, adding that this was “an urgent task, but also one that requires long-term engagement.”

The Deputy Prime Minister lauded the UN for its comprehensive role in an increasingly complex and challenging world of “numerous turning points and contrasts” and suggested that the Organization had improved its output.

“The UN is playing better its central role in the promotion of the system of rules and norms of international law, thus facilitating solutions to global challenges and in the interests of peace and development for all nations,” he said.

But with greater momentum needed to complete the Millennium Development Goals and press for a post-2015 development agenda, Mr. Pham encouraged the global body to increase its focus and actions on addressing social injustices and inequalities and provide stronger support to regional and subregional programmes on connectivity, poverty reduction, narrowing the development gap and building the green economy.

In addition, he urged full reform of the UN Security Council in both membership and working methods “to better respond to global challenges to peace and security.”

Pivoting to more regional concerns, Mr. Pham underlined the great efforts Viet Nam and other Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were making to establish an ASEAN Community in 2015 based on the pillars of political security and economic and socio-cultural cooperation.

“This, we believe, will help build a Southeast Asian region of peace, stability, cooperation and prosperity and form a regional architecture, with ASEAN at the centre, founded upon international law and aim to develop common rules and norms for the region,” he concluded.