UN General Assembly
1995

Allow me at the outset to congratulate Mr. Freitas do Amaral on his election to the prestigious office of President of the General Assembly at this fiftieth session. His distinguished career in Portuguese politics serves as an assurance that his tenure will be very workmanlike and fruitful, in addition to celebratory. I wish also to thank the outgoing president, Ambassador Amara Essy, for the excellent job he did last year. It is particularly auspicious to address the General Assembly this week — a day after the signing, in Washington, of a bulky, carefully crafted and long-argued-over agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the second stage of Palestinian autonomy; and a few days after the signing, here in New York, of a much slimmer, much more tentative and much more general set of additional principles for peace in the South Slav States, which, nevertheless, we hope, represents the next step towards peace in that area as well. On 24 October, the United Nations will celebrate its jubilee. This indicates that the objectives and ideals of