H.E. President Michel Sleiman, H.E. Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is an honour to speak at this important event, and in such distinguished company, on the United Nations’ role in Lebanon and the importance of the Baabda Declaration.
The United Nations has over many decades been a partner with Lebanon in efforts to achieve stability and to strengthen its sovereignty and independence. There was a step change in this engagement after the war of 2006 with the adoption of Security Council resolution 1701.
The arrangements put in place by resolution 1701 have made possible seven years of unprecedented calm across the Blue Line, and contributed importantly not only to Lebanon’s security but to that of the region as a whole. But since I arrived here last year the focus of our work in Lebanon has been at least as much on the impact here of the crisis in Syria.
Lebanon has responded with great generosity to the most visible impact of that crisis – the influx of so many refugees from Syria. The United Nations has recognized the enormous burden this imposes on Lebanon and is seeking not only to provide necessary relief to the refugees, but also to ensure international assistance to communities hosting them and to state institutions and government services affected by their presence, and by the crisis more generally. We have placed heavy emphasis on support for the Lebanese Armed Forces. All these concerns lay at the heart of the meeting of the International Support Group for Lebanon the Secretary-General convened in New York on 25 September in the presence of President Sleiman.
As a neighbor linked by history, geography and culture to Syria Lebanon has every interest in the resumption, and success, of a political process to end the fighting there. But these very links, and the deep political divisions here with regard to the conflict, speak to the wisdom of Lebanon’s policy of disassociation more generally – a policy which has been repeatedly commended by the Secretary-General and by the Security Council.
The United Nations has also long encouraged and supported dialogue within Lebanon as the best way to address the most important challenges facing the country. It should therefore be no surprise that the Baabda Declaration was explicitly welcomed, first by the Secretary-General and then by the members of the Security Council, soon after it was adopted in the National Dialogue in June last year and circulated as a document of the Security Council.
There are of course many elements in the Baabda Declaration. Almost all of them track with concerns voiced repeatedly by the United Nations – the need to strengthen state institutions and the rule of law, the need for support for the Army, and the importance of respect for international resolutions including resolution 1701 and other elements related to the borders and to the heightened political rhetoric. The initial welcome for the Declaration did not pick and choose between elements in it, all of which are clearly important. But it was paragraph twelve of the Declaration which appeared to break new ground, with its adoption of the goal of keeping Lebanon neutral in respect of regional and international conflicts, and emphasis on the need to avoid the negative repercussions of regional crises in order to preserve national unity and civil peace, except where matters of international legitimacy or Arab consensus or the Palestinian cause are concerned.
Successive reports by the Secretary-General have drawn attention to the Declaration and in particular this element in it, as did the Presidential statement on the impact of the Syrian crisis on Lebanon which was adopted by the Security Council on 10 July this year. In that statement the Council called upon all Lebanese parties to step back from any involvement in the Syrian crisis consistent with their commitment in the Baabda Declaration.
It is clear however from the Baabda Declaration itself, and from the thought provoking remarks we have heard already this morning, that its significance goes beyond the immediate crisis. Among the lessons of Lebanon’s history since its independence is that stability and social peace here have been acutely vulnerable to external factors and regional developments. In adopting the Baabda Declaration and the principle of neutralization National Dialogue members took a bold step. It is for the people of Lebanon and its leaders to discuss in dialogue how they wish to move forward. But I am sure the Baabda Declaration, adopted in the National Dialogue, will be a cornerstone for such action.
Finally, I take this opportunity to thank the organizers of today’s event for their work in again focusing attention on it, and to pay tribute to the President for all he is doing in this and other respects to seek to underpin stability in Lebanon.
Thank you.