UN General Assembly
2010

The Republic of the Marshall Islands welcomes the leadership of the United Arab Emirates as host of the International Renewable Energy Agency. We look forward to pursuing increased partnership with the United Arab Emirates and to establishing a dialogue with the Arab League on investment and development assistance in the Pacific region. Finally, I must address one of this year’s most important issues within the United Nations. Member States and leaders must improve progress towards achieving the goal of stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and pursue the peace and security of a world without them. The Marshall Islands has a unique reason for seeking the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. During our time as a United Nations Trust Territory, 67 large-scale surface tests of nuclear weapons were conducted on our homeland, explicitly authorized under two United Nations resolutions, in 1954 and 1956. No people should ever bear such a burden. For decades, we have told the United Nations about our communities who are still displaced, about the deliberate use of our people in scientific experiments