CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT HOLDS FIRST PLENARY UNDER TURKISH PRESIDENCY

The Conference on Disarmament this morning held its first public plenary under the presidency of Turkey.

Beliz Celasin Rende, Chargé d’Affaires a.i., Permanent Mission of Turkey to the United Nations Office at Geneva and President of the Conference on Disarmament, in her introductory remarks, outlined Turkey’s vision and plans for the last presidency of the 2018 session and recognized the enormous effort of all Member States to advance the work of the Conference since the beginning of the current session. The establishment of the five subsidiary bodies had been a very important step forward, she said, which raised high hopes of progress for many who had a shared concern over the state of various disarmament platforms.

Turning to the draft annual report of the 2018 session, the President recalled Turkey’s commitment to producing a factual, impartial and objective report in a transparent manner, and recalled that, following the circulation of the draft text on 20 August, Turkey had conducted bilateral meetings with all interested Member States which shared their remarks on the proposed text. The President invited the delegations to submit their comments in writing by 27 August, which would be compiled and circulated to all Member States. The exchange of views on the report would continue next week, she said, reaffirming Turkey’s readiness to hold additional plenaries and informal meetings in order to adopt a consensual report. The draft report had placeholders for the reports of the subsidiary bodies, which were scheduled to conclude their work on 24 August, and whose reports would be brought to the Conference for adoption.

Also speaking during the meeting, Zimbabwe hoped that the United Nations Secretary-General’s Disarmament Agenda would help to create some fresh momentum in the disarmament discourse, reinvigorate the stalled work of the Conference, and help refocus this institution towards a return to negotiations. Commenting on the inability of the Conference to agree on a substantive programme of work, and the fact that substantive negotiations were now taking place outside of this body, Zimbabwe said that twenty-two years after the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was too long a period to be doing nothing. Zimbabwe condemned the use of weapons of mass destruction and noted the glaring display of contradiction and double standards in the positions of some Members who, “in one breath, condemn the use of one set of weapons of mass destruction, and extol the supposed virtues of nuclear weapons in their national security doctrines.”


The next plenary meeting of the Conference on Disarmament will take place at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 28 August 2018.


For use of the information media; not an official record

DC/18/038E