UN General Assembly
2004

delegations put forth an initiative to hold, within the framework of the sixtieth session of United Nations General Assembly in spring 2006, a special plenary meeting to commemorate the victims of the Chernobyl disaster. Ukraine has fulfilled its commitments related to the closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. What needs to be done today is to construct a new safe confinement. We expect that funds for this purpose promised by the Group of Seven in 1995 will be fully provided. 23 Chernobyl remains a searing wound, which proves every day how fragile our world is and how easily nature can be damaged. No one should doubt our commitment to the preservation of our environment. That is why Ukraine is so sensitive to environmental protection, whether it concerns building of roads, construction of new power plants or the reopening of a navigable waterway. It was fashionable some years ago to criticize the United Nations for its inability to solve the most important problems. Today we all come to this Assembly with the ever-stronger conviction that there