UNITED KINGDOM’S MINISTER ADDRESSES CONFERENCE
ON DISARMAMENT

Kim Howells, the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom, today briefed the Conference on Disarmament on the Government’s decision to maintain a nuclear deterrent.

Mr. Howells, who is responsible for disarmament issues, said that at the end of last year, the United Kingdom had published a White Paper explaining the reasoning behind the Government’s decision to maintain a nuclear deterrent. Today, he wanted to present the issues of most relevance in the document to this Conference, and to try to react to some of the points made in a powerful speech on disarmament and non-proliferation last November by the former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The United Kingdom was now deciding whether to begin the concept and design work required to make possible a replacement for its current submarine fleet, and whether to maintain the option of using the D5 missile system beyond its current life expectancy. Mr. Howells said this did not mean that the United Kingdom was taking an irreversible decision that committed it irrevocably to possessing nuclear weapons in 40 or 50 years time. The White Paper made it clear that the United Kingdom remained committed to the goal of a world free from nuclear weapons. It did mean, however, that the United Kingdom needed to ensure that it had the capability in 17 years time to retain a submarine based deterrent. The United Kingdom did not believe that the circumstances currently existed for the safety of the country for it to choose unilaterally to renounce its nuclear weapons. As Mr. Annan had acknowledged, substantial nuclear arsenals remained; the net number of nuclear armed States had increased and not decreased; and there continued to be significant risks of new nuclear armed States emerging.

Mr. Howells said the United Kingdom fully accepted Mr. Annan’s proposition that progress must be made on the disarmament and non-proliferation tracks in parallel. The United Kingdom had therefore decided to reduce its stockpile of operationally available warheads by a further 20 per cent to less than 160. This was just the latest in a series of dramatic reductions to the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons. Renewing the Trident system did not reverse or undermine any of the United Kingdom’s positive disarmament steps. The United Kingdom was retaining, not modernizing its deterrent. There was no change in the capabilities of the system, no move to produce more useable weapons, and no change in nuclear posture or doctrine. The United Kingdom’s nuclear weapon system was a strategic deterrent that the country would only ever contemplate using in extreme circumstances of self-defence.

The current set of difficulties facing the Conference had proven particularly challenging. He shared with all the frustration at the current stalemate and a determination to break it. Happily, the prospects for progress in the Conference were now very good. Like many delegations, the United Kingdom saw the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty as the next logical phase for multilateral nuclear disarmament. The Conference should be able to reach agreement to begin negotiations on it without any preconditions. It was high time for the Conference to demonstrate once more to the international community that the Geneva spirit of being able to move beyond polemics to develop practical answers to real world issues was vigorous and alive. The solution was in the hands of the Conference.

On the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Mr. Howells said the United Kingdom continued to regard the Treaty as the cornerstone of the nuclear non-proliferation regime and the appropriate framework for nuclear disarmament. The support of the United Kingdom for the Treaty was longstanding and had not diminished over time. The United Kingdom fully recognised the right of States, in compliance with their NPT obligations, to use and benefit from nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, as set out in Article Four. Nonetheless, certain nuclear technologies posed particularly acute proliferation risks. The United Kingdom was working with the international community to underwrite the ability of States to utilise nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, without undermining the common interest in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and the means to produce them. The United Kingdom hoped that the NPT PrepCom, scheduled to take place in Vienna in May, would be remarkable for a change in the atmosphere of the discussions; one of positive engagement and tolerance.

Concluding with comments on conventional arms, Mr. Howells said the United Kingdom had been leading calls for work to be taken forward on a legally binding treaty on the trade in conventional arms. A treaty was needed to guarantee that Governments put controls in place to ensure that deals were not allowed to go ahead unless they were confident that arms would not be misused, for example - in breach of UN Sanctions, to escalate conflict, or by human rights abusers. There was agreement in December to the start of a United Nations process. As a first step the United Nations Secretary-General had now sought views on the initiative. The deadline for response was the end of April and it was vitally important that all countries looked at this from their own national perspective and actively fed in their views to the Secretary-General.

The next public plenary of the Conference will be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 27 February.