General Assembly, Adopting Work Programme for Session, Discusses New Items, Endorses General Debate Schedule of 28 September to 3 October

Acting on the recommendations of its General Committee, the General Assembly this morning adopted the work programme and agenda for its seventieth session, which contained 173 items, and endorsed the recommendation that its general debate would be held from 28 September to 3 October.

That information, and other organizational matters concerning the Assembly, is contained in the General Committee’s first report (document A/70/250).

Among the topics to be considered in the current Assembly session were several new ones, including follow-up to the outcome document of the high-level plenary meeting — the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples; joint ad-hoc meeting of the First (Disarmament and International Security) and Fourth Committees (Special Political and Decolonization) on possible challenges to space security and sustainability; and global awareness of the tragedies of irregular migrants in the Mediterranean Basin with specific emphasis on Syrian asylum seekers.

Speaking on the latter, the representative of Syria said that his country was deeply concerned about the proposal by Turkey to include that agenda item.  Expressing doubt about the concealed objectives of the item, he added that the crisis in his country was due to terrorism caused by foreign interference in Syrian life.  The policies of the Turkish regime were a major factor in that scenario.

The representative of Turkey stated that those baseless allegations were another attempt to distract from the humanitarian suffering in the Mediterranean region.  Turkey trusted that the initiative to include the item would enable the international community to discuss what viable solutions could be found through collective efforts and partnerships.  Turkey had proposed the agenda item, but it was in the collective interest of the General Assembly to consider it.

It was also decided that items on the observer status of the Eurasian Economic Union, International Civil Defence Organization, Indian Ocean Rim Association and Community of Democracies would be included in the work programme.

The Question of the Comorian Island of Mayotte was included on the understanding that the matter would not be considered.  The Assembly deferred consideration of the Question of the Malagasy Islands of Glorieuses, Juan de Nova, Europa and Bassas da India to its seventy-first session.

During approval of various items in the agenda grouped under heading B of the document, concerning maintenance of international peace and security, Armenia’s representative disassociated his delegation from the consensus to include an item on “The situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan”.

The Assembly decided that the delegations of the Holy See and the State of Palestine would participate in the seventieth session as observer States, and that the European Union would participate in the work of the session as an observer.