STATEMENT BY H.E. SHEIKHA HAYA RASHED AL KHALIFA THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY AT THE 7TH INFORMAL MEETING OF THE OPEN-ENDED WORKING GROUP ON THE QUESTION OF EQUITABLE REPRESENTATION ON AND INCREASE IN THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL AND OTHER MATTERS RELATED TO THE SECURITY COUNCIL UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS NEW YORK
3 May 2007

Excellencies, Distinguished delegates,

We meet here today to exchange views on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council, further to the Facilitator's report, which I transmitted to you on 20 April. Unofficial translations in all other five languages were issued on 25 April in order to facilitate our consultations.

Lct me once again renew my sincerest thanks and appreciation to Their Excellencies Ali Hachani, the Permanent Representative of Tunisia; Andreas D. Mavroyiannis, the Permanent Representative Cyprus; Mirjana Mladineo, the Permanent Representative of Croatia; Heraldo Muiioz, the Permanent

Representative of Chile; and, Frank Majoor, the Permanent Representative of Netherlands.

They have discharged their responsibilities with the highest degree of integrity and competence. I congratulate them for having presented me and the membership with a comprehensive assessment of the current state of affairs regarding Security Council reform.

As I underlined in my letter of 20 April, Security Council reform is an essential aspect of our overall efforts to reform the Organization. I trust Membcr States have reviewed the Facilitators' report in a constructive spirit.

I believe their evaluation and suggestions, in particular those contained in
the section "Notions on the Way Fonvard", can senre as a good basis for our discussions.

The report outlines the current status of Member States' views on Security Council reform, around the five key issues that I have suggested, namely: categories of membership; the question of the veto; the question of regional representation; the size of an enlarged Security Council; and, the working methods of the Security Council and the relationship between the Security Council and the General Assembly.

The report emphasizes that maintaining the status quo is not acceptable to an overwhelming majority of Member States. We should therefore take all necessary steps to advance this important area of our work.

As we are all aware, the purpose of this exercise was outlined by our leaders in the 2005 Summit Outcome Document, and continues to be relevant today. Our collective efforts should lead us to reform the Council to make it more representative, efficient and transparent, and to further enhance its effectiveness and the legitimacy of its decisions.

I believe that we should take advantage of this report and use the momentum
it has created thus far to achieve concrete progress.

What is important a t this stage is for all of us to agree to a result-oriented process.

At this meeting, I wish to seek from you the initial responses on the report by the Facilitators, particularly the concrete proposals made in the report, so that we could consider the options for the way ahead.