ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
August 18, 2004 Wednesday
Russia, CIS propose to UN to institute world remembrance day
By Vladimir Kikilo
UNITED NATIONS
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have put forward a proposal
to the U.N. General Assembly to announce May 8 and 9 Remembrance and
Reconciliation Days.
The proposal to put this issue as additional item on the agenda of
the forthcoming 59th session of the U.N. General Assembly is included
in the letter sent to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan by the
countries. Permanent representatives of these states at the United
Nations signed the letter.
“In 2005 the world will celebrate the 60th anniversary of victory
over fascism,” it is said in an explanatory note to the letter, in
particular.
“The great victory in the World War II was achieved by joint efforts
of peoples of many countries. It gave a powerful impetus to the
international community cohesion, which resulted in the establishment
of the United Nations Organisation. Through the suffering and death
of millions of people the nations of the world came to realise that
there is no alternative to the system of collective security that
took shape in the U.N. Charter for maintaining international peace,”
the message says.
“The peoples of our countries have shouldered the main burden of the
war, so we are convinced like no other that there are no such goals
that would justify unleashing of wars,” it is stressed in the
document.
“U.N. member states should jointly exert every effort with a view to
putting an end to the current armed conflicts using political
methods, preventing the emergence of such conflicts in the future and
promoting the maintenance of a stable and solid peace,” the document
says.
“It is in the common interests of humanity to further strengthen the
role and effectiveness of the United Nations Organisation as the
central element of the collective security system in the fulfilment
of the high task proclaimed in its Charter – to relieve the coming
generations from the scourge of war,” the letter reads.
The authors of the letter proposed to the U.N. General Assembly to
adopt a resolution that would announce May 8 and 9 the days of
remembrance and reconciliation, as well as to hold a special solemn
session of the Assembly in order to adopt a declaration aimed at the
unification of humankind in the name of peace and progress and
prevention of new world wars.