UN General Assembly
2016

At the outset, I am pleased to congratulate His Excellency Mr. Peter Thomson on his assumption of the presidency of the General Assembly at its seventy-first session and to reaffirm the United Arab Emirates’ support for his efforts during his term. I would also like to express my thanks and appreciation to his predecessor, Mr. Mogens Lykketoft, for his wise leadership during the previous session. In our region and beyond, several countries have confronted multiple ongoing crises and conflicts since 2011. A number of Arab countries, including Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Syria and Somalia, have descended into internal fighting. At the same time, the plight of the Palestinian people persists under Israeli occupation without a just solution on the horizon, one that could restore the rights stripped from the Palestinians and establish their State based on the June 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.