CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT OPENS 2007 SESSION

The Conference on Disarmament this morning opened its 2007 session, hearing a message from the Secretary-General of the United Nations and general statements from Poland, Slovakia, the United States, the Netherlands, the Russian Federation as well as South Africa as President of the Conference.

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his message to the Conference which was read out by Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament and Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, expressed his sincere hope that this year’s meeting of the Conference would make significant progress on the disarmament agenda. He looked at the Conference on Disarmament, the world’s single negotiating forum for multilateral disarmament, to rise to the challenge. He hoped the Conference would demonstrate the political resolve necessary to take difficult measures. The aim was to prevent any expansion of nuclear arsenals, and accelerating the reduction of existing weapons stockpiles.

Ambassador Glaudine Mtshali of South Africa, President of the Conference, said she would spare no effort to try and awaken the Conference from its slumber and extended hibernation. All the Presidents of the Conference for 2007 had agreed to join South Africa in a united effort throughout this year to guide the work of the Conference. To the extent that South Africa had tried and would continue to try to energise the work of the Conference this year, the President nevertheless remained an instrument of the Conference and its Member States. The President was very much like a mirror that reflected back to the Member States. If the Conference elected to continue maintaining the current stalemate and impasse, that unfortunately would be reflected. She appealed to all delegations to demonstrate a constructive spirit and the required flexibility that would allow it to adopt an agenda for 2007 at the earliest possible moment.

Following a brief informal plenary, Ms. Mtshali said that the Conference would continue discussions and exchanging views on its draft agenda at its next plenary on Wednesday, 24 January and at the informal plenary which would follow it. She would also continue consultations with the delegations concerned and would keep the Conference informed.

General statements were made by Poland, Slovakia, the United States, the Netherlands and the Russian Federation.

The Conference approved requests by the following States to participate in the 2007 session of the Conference as observers: Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Holy See, Kuwait, Latvia, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mauritius, Nepal, Oman, Portugal, Qatar, Moldova, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Sudan and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The next plenary of the Conference will be held at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 24 January.

Statements

GLAUDINE MTSHALI (South Africa), President of the Conference, said South Africa was extremely honoured to assume the Presidency of the Conference. She would spare no effort to try and awaken the Conference from its slumber and extended hibernation. All the Presidents of the Conference for 2007 had agreed to join South Africa in a united effort throughout this year to guide the work of the Conference. The 2007 session of the Conference was taking placed against the backdrop of a number of challenges, some might even say failures, that had affected international disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control efforts during the last two years. She would seek to approach South Africa’s Presidency of the Conference as an opportunity to seek out areas of agreement and possible compromise, rather than disagreement, among members. Apart from the bilateral consultations with all members of the Conference, she had also sought to engage members at the informal meeting last week, and also within the context of the regional groups.

To the extent that South Africa had tried and would continue to try to energise the work of the Conference this year, the President nevertheless remained an instrument of the Conference and its Member States. The President was very much like a mirror that reflected back to the Member States. If the Conference elected to continue maintaining the current stalemate and impasse, that unfortunately would be reflected. Members of the Conference frequently referred to the lack of political will as the main reason for the stalemate that the Conference had experienced over the past 10 years. However, those based in Geneva contributed significantly to the advice that influenced the decisions taken by the capitals in this regard. Therefore, political will was what they made of it. Either the Conference could be suspicious of any new initiatives and seek to question them by reverting to procedural arguments relating to form, rather than substance, or they could seek to set aside their differences and make positive contributions for the benefit of the entire conference. She appealed to all delegations to demonstrate a constructive spirit and the required flexibility that would allow it to adopt an agenda for 2007 at the earliest possible moment.

SERGEI ORDZHONIKIDZE, Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament and Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, reading out the message by BAN KI-MOON, Secretary-General of the United Nations, said Mr. Ban expressed his sincere hope that this year’s meeting of the Conference would make significant progress on the disarmament agenda. The United Nations could and must be fully engaged in the work to invigorate disarmament and non-proliferation efforts and he intended to ensure that the Organization was up to the task. He also looked at the Conference on Disarmament, the world’s single negotiating forum for multilateral disarmament, to rise to the challenge. He hoped the Conference would demonstrate the political resolve necessary to take difficult measures. The aim was to prevent any expansion of nuclear arsenals, and accelerating the reduction of existing weapons stockpiles. All countries should move towards halting production of fissile material for weapons. Maintaining the moratorium on nuclear tests was equally important. The prevention of an arms race in space continued to present an urgent challenge as such a race would seriously affect the preservation of outer space for peaceful purposes. He was also conscious of the importance attached within the membership of the Conference to stronger negative security assurances from nuclear weapon States. The Conference should lead progress on all these fronts. The challenges ahead were significant. Yet the world was at a promising juncture in the disarmament debate. Both the Third Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, and the Sixth Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention had recently concluded with significant gains. Their outcomes had improved the climate for progress on multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation diplomacy. The Conference must now seize this moment.

ZDZISLAW RAPACKI (Poland) said he was convinced that the synergy already gained by the close cooperation of all the Presidents of the Conference continued to produce tangible results and visible benefits. Poland had always been dedicated to the cause of international peace and security, including multilateral endeavours in the field of global disarmament. It remained persistent in its efforts and would continue its active participation in elaborating new concepts and ideas that would ensure the Conference’s role as the single negotiating forum in the field of disarmament, despite the difficulties that it had recently experienced. The proposals introduced in 2006 had been thoroughly reconsidered, re-examined and further developed by the platform of this year’s presidents. Poland welcomed and supported new concepts encompassed in an organizational framework, assuming more refined, more focused and more in-depth discussions on the substantive issues. This was the best possible solution on how to move the Conference in the direction of re-launching the negotiation process on the matters most vital on the international peace and security. At this stage of proceedings, a prompt adoption of the agenda of the Conference seemed to be the most important task. He trusted that like last year, flexibility and determination to conduct substantive work within the Conference would prevail and he hoped that the Conference succeeded in adopting smoothly the agenda. He appealed to all Member States of the Conference to act in a spirit of flexibility and show the necessary political will that would spare the reputation of the Conference, as a setback with respect to the agenda could be very costly.

ANTON PINTER (Slovakia) said Slovakia shared the view of those delegations that saw the membership of their country in the Conference as a membership that was engaged in real business and thus negotiated important global disarmament and security norms. He hoped that the words of encouragement, support and understanding would be translated into a constructive approach of each and every delegation aimed at overcoming the long period of absence of negotiations. Slovakia hoped the Conference would sustain this optimism and translate it into concrete productive action. It was important to try to achieve common understanding and interpretation of all elements of the arrangements and agreements that applied during the whole year. This approach stemmed from the prerequisite that the agenda of the Conference was inclusive enough to cover all security questions that Member States had. He joined voices that strongly discouraged against any attempts to change the agenda agreed upon last year.

The issue of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) ranked among the core issues of the Conference and as such had a special position within the agenda. Based on these aspects and having in mind two concrete proposals on an FMCT submitted in May 2006, Slovakia considered it appropriate that this year, the Conference upgrade the level of its engagement vis-à-vis this issue. He hoped that last year’s momentum gathered in the Conference and the atmosphere of growing confidence would be developed into a new era of productivity for the Conference.

CHRISTINA ROCCA (United States) said the first order of business for the Conference was to adopt an agenda. The United States believed that the agenda contained in CD/1764 had served the Conference well and continued to meet the needs of this body. Its scope was broad enough to accommodate deliberations on any issue of global security that the membership deemed appropriate. The United States was prepared to join consensus in adopting the same agenda for 2007. The United States wished to maintain the momentum acquired last year and move forward, rather than repeat the process. With the effort to craft an organization plan that was intensive, yet flexible, the Presidents of the Conference might have found a way to break the deadlock that had stymied action in the Conference for over a decade. The United States was cautiously optimistic that 2007 would be the year during which the Conference abandoned the failed package approach and focused its efforts on the issue that commanded consensus in this body. The United States was eager to join others in commencing work negotiating a legally binding ban on the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons or other explosive devises. Concluding an FMCT was a desirable and achievable goal for the Conference, which was why the United States had tabled a draft text of such a treaty last year and it urged others to use this as a basis for finally beginning substantive work toward a goal they all shared.

The Member States of the Conference should work together to prove to their respective governments that the Conference remained a viable venue for discussing the most important international security issues of the day.

JOHANNES LANDMAN (the Netherlands) said the Netherlands was very pleased that the President had chosen to work as a team together with the other five incoming Presidents in preparing the sessions of the Conference this year, building on the laudable precedents and important innovations of last year. For the Conference to be effective, a maximum of cooperation between Presidents had been shown to be crucial. The newly gained momentum should not be lost. For a decade, delegations emphasized to no avail the important role the Conference was supposed to play in assuring international security and peace. This role was becoming more urgently required. What was needed was confidence building, flexibility and creativity that the President and her five colleagues had already shown a lot of.

The Netherlands was ready to engage in discussions with an open mind and with respect for the positions of other members of the Conference. Negotiations should start without preconditions and under the understanding that nothing was precluded from the negotiations. Fixed linkages were unhelpful, just as insistence on no linkages at all were not helpful either. The Netherlands had never disguised that it was ready to start negotiations on a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and other nuclear devices, while being flexible on the further makeup of the programme of work. It hoped that other Members of the Conference were or would soon be able to express similar readiness and flexibility to start negotiations. The agenda of the Conference was all-inclusive. Last year, the Conference’s agenda had been adopted within one day. The Netherlands trusted that it would be adopted this year as smoothly as last year.

VALERY LOSHCHININ (Russian Federation) said that as the first President of the Conference for 2007, South Africa had the very difficult task to prepare the basic concepts and practical organization of the session. The Russian Federation welcomed the proposal of the six Presidents for 2007 to coordinate activities and work towards a common goal to ensure a substantive session. The proposals so far were important, constructive and most promising. As a first step, the Conference needed to adopt its agenda. Russia was in favour of adopting it immediately without any change. The agenda included issues that were still topical for the international community and it was sufficiently flexible in order to ensure discussions on practically any disarmament question. Member States reserved the right to correct the agenda as the Conference proceeded if there was the desire to do so on the part of States. The Conference needed to ensure consensus on the work programme. Everything possible must be done, and the Member States should refrain from any steps which would stop this.


For use of the information media; not an official record

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