CNS STORY: War cannot be means to promote national interests, Vatican tells U.N.

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CNS Story:

UN-MAMBERTI Oct-2-2007 (470 words) xxxn

War cannot be means to promote national interests, Vatican tells U.N.

By Catholic News Service

UNITED NATIONS (CNS) -- War and armed conflict are no longer sustainable means for promoting or protecting national interests, the Vatican's top foreign affairs official told the U.N. General Assembly.

U.N. agreements concerning disarmament and the nonproliferation of weapons and plans to create "a standing team of expert mediators" to prevent conflict should receive increased support, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti said Oct. 1 at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Speaking during the general debate marking the opening of the 62nd session of the U.N. General Assembly, the archbishop said the values upon which the United Nations were founded should be reaffirmed so as to "deliver a forceful 'no' to war and an equally forceful 'yes' to human dignity."

He said respect for human dignity "is the deepest ethical foundation" upon which peace and fraternal relations between nations are built.

"Forgetting, or partially and selectively accepting" this principle of respect "is what lies at the origin of conflicts, of environmental degradation and of social and economic injustice," he told assembly members.

A nation's interests are never absolute and must never be defended in a way that harms "the legitimate interests of other states," he said, adding that nations have a duty to promote the common good around the world.

Archbishop Mamberti said, "In the difficult crossroads in which humanity finds itself today, the use of force no longer represents a sustainable solution."

He urged nations to save the U.N. Conference on Disarmament from a decadelong impasse and ease the "severe strain" on its treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. He also urged nations to give added support to a nuclear test ban treaty and other measures for arms control.

He called for renewed commitment in bringing peace and moral, political and economic reconstruction to "long-suffering Iraq." He also asked for concerted efforts to bring peace to the Darfur region of Sudan, bring stability to Lebanon, and bring Israelis and Palestinians to negotiations that would result in a solution that recognizes "the legitimate expectations of each side."

The archbishop praised U.N. plans to devote more resources to preventing conflict by creating a team of expert negotiators.

He also supported U.N. initiatives to further interreligious and cultural dialogue, saying such a conversation is "indispensable for peace" and cooperation.

He warned that "the right to religious freedom continues to be disregarded and even violated in certain places" around the world.

"If religious leaders and believers expect states and societies to respect them and acknowledge their religions to be truly instruments of peace, they themselves must respect religious freedom," Archbishop Mamberti said. Religious leaders must promote peace, shun violence, and show that religion is not an excuse for violence since justifying or fueling conflict in the name of religion is a "blatant contradiction," he said.

END

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