Fifty-ninth General Assembly

General Committee

6^th Meeting (AM)

GENERAL COMMITTEE DEFERS CONSIDERATION OF REQUEST TO INCLUDE

ADDITIONAL SUB-ITEM ON GENERAL ASSEMBLY’S CURRENT AGENDA

After a brief discussion, the General Committee this morning decided to defer to a later date consideration of a request for the inclusion of an additional sub-item relating to “groups of countries in special situations” on the General Assembly’s current agenda.

The request for the inclusion of a sub-item entitled “Rendering assistance to the poor mountain countries to overcome obstacles in socio-economic and ecological areas” was contained in a letter dated 5 November from the Permanent Representatives of Afghanistan, Costa Rica, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Nepal (document A/59/238).

Members of the Committee acknowledged the significance of the issue but maintained that adding yet another item to the Assembly’s agenda ran counter to last year’s key decisions to streamline the body’s work.

Introducing the sub-item, Kyrgyzstan’s representative said he believed that poor mountain countries truly were in a special situation, and that resolving their problems would require the most urgent measures.  The socio-economic problems of those countries were a very serious challenge for them, as well as for the wider global community.  He wished to focus everyone’s attention on the need to combat poverty in mountain regions, which was a source of many ills and tragedies, as well as a very serious obstacle to economic development.

When the floor was opened for discussion, the representative of the United Kingdom was among those expressing support for sustainable development and the plight of people living in mountainous regions.  Nevertheless, he said the Organization had devoted great efforts during the past year towards revitalizing the Assembly’s agenda.  Modest progress had been made in terms of the clustering of items and discussions.  Therefore, he was concerned that today’s gathering was being used not so much to streamline the Assembly’s work but to expand it.

He noted that recent meetings had seen the Committee even “un-pick” agreed topics for discussion or separate items that had been slated for joint debate.  And while he understood the item’s importance to those States and peoples from underdeveloped mountainous regions, he wondered why it had not been urgent two months ago when the Committee had debated and set the Assembly’s 2004 agenda.  Since the proposal had come to his delegation’s attention only yesterday, he requested more time to consider whether it was of an “important and urgent nature” to be included in the Assembly’s agenda.

The Assembly decided to postpone consideration of the sub-item following similar reservations expressed by the representative of France, who urged the Committee to “bear in mind respect for the rules that we ourselves approved”, and Belgium’s representative, who asked for further time to look on the matter, to be certain that any action the Committee took would be in conformity with the Assembly’s prior decisions.

The General Committee will meet again at a time to be announced.

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