UN General Assembly
2003

﻿Allow me to congratulate you, Sir, on your election as President of the General Assembly at its fifty-eighth session. That is a significant tribute to you and to Saint Lucia. Estonia, like Saint Lucia, is a small State, and together we can admit that the United Nations is an Organization that allows small States to participate on equal footing with large ones in influencing global processes. I also commend your predecessor, Mr. Jan Kavan, for his accomplishments in presiding over the fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly. I am particularly pleased to do so in the light of the similar histories of Estonia and the Czech Republic and of our common endeavours to join the family of democratic nations, the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance. The fifty-eighth regular session is the first since the outbreak of the war in Iraq. This year has been a difficult one, both for the United Nations and for the entire world. Long and emotional debates in the Security Council preceded the Iraq crisis. Many think