CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT HEARS FROM NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS COMMEMORATING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

The Conference on Disarmament today heard a statement from a group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which organize an annual seminar to mark International Women's Day, prompting a number of Member States to call on the Conference to change its rules and allow civil society to address the plenary directly.

Ambassador Tim Caughley of New Zealand, the President of the Conference, read out the statement from the Annual Seminar to Mark International Women’s Day, which this year was entitled "Women Say No to Nuclear Weapons!" The statement urged the Conference to review NGO participation and access to all international disarmament fora. It noted that the culture of militarism that had gained around the world was pushing the cornerstone of the disarmament regime, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, towards a dangerous precipice. Drastic measures were needed in order to arrest this development.

The statement from the NGOs said the Conference on Disarmament had a unique opportunity to arrest this development at the forthcoming seventh NPT Review Conference. If the Conference was able to adopt a programme of work and start substantive discussions on nuclear disarmament, a fissile materials treaty, the prevention of an arms race in outer space, and/or other items on the proposed agenda, it would be endowing the Review Conference with a much needed head-start on its own work.

In response, New Zealand, Norway, Ireland, the Netherlands and Germany urged that the Conference to change its rules to allow civil society to address the plenary directly instead of through the President.

Also today, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea said that as everyone was aware, the Conference on Disarmament was now almost paralysed. It was no exaggeration to say that the fate of the Conference was at risk. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea did not think that the problem lay in procedure or any other working method. There was a big political obstacle ahead of the Conference which was the existence of political will to block progress in the Conference. If the paralysed conference was to be revived, this negative political approach should be decisively changed.

Algeria, speaking on behalf of Member and Observer Arab States to the Conference, said that Arab countries had rejected nuclear proliferation by joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Arab States had endeavoured in all fora to raise awareness of the danger of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. The final document of the Sixth Review Conference of the NPT had been very clear in reaffirming the necessity of Israel to accede to the Treaty and to open its nuclear facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The President of the Conference offered tentative conclusions on his consultations. He said that the positive indications or impulses that he had identified had led him to put forward for reflection several badly stated equations: securing agreement on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) mandate without conditions might entail the acceptance of discussion mandates on the other three core issues, and its corollary - security agreement on discussion mandates on the three core issues appeared to entail acceptance of an FMCT mandate without conditions; and the readiness to accept the negotiation of an FMCT entailed the need to ensure that that negotiation encompassed as a minimum the inclusion of a verification mechanism. By the words "as a minimum", he was alluding to the concerns of some States that a work programme that met this need would also include discussion mandates on the other core issues.

At the end of the meeting, the President said that the Conference would hold three plenaries next week in order to accommodate the tight schedules of the Foreign Ministers who would be addressing it. There would be a plenary at 11 a.m. on Monday, 14 March to hear a statement from the Foreign Minister of Canada. The Conference would meet at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 15 March to hear from the Foreign Ministers of Peru, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden. On Thursday, 17 March the Conference would meet at 10 a.m. and would hear from the Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, the Foreign Minister of Slovakia, the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Japan and the Foreign Minister of Poland.
The next plenary of the Conference on Disarmament will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, 14 March 2005.

Statements

TIM CAUGHLEY (New Zealand), President of the Conference on Disarmament, reading out a statement from the Annual Seminar to Mark International Women’s Day, said that since 1984, a group of Geneva-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs), together with members of the NGO Working Group on Peace, had held a seminar to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March in tribute to the tireless work done by women around the world for the achievement of justice, peace and security. They again used this opportunity to engage the public and governments to recognize the centuries' old demand of women for nations to totally and universally disarm. Women mobilized support for disarmament and peace. Increased dialogue with and participation of non-governmental organizations in all disarmament efforts would facilitate a much broader, more comprehensive understanding of security, one that could form the basis of a windfall of new security arrangements and treaties. The stalemate in moving disarmament forward must be broken now.

Ambassador Caughley said that the statement from the Annual Seminar to Mark International Women’s Day stated that the Conference had struggled for eight long years to move forward. It would not be able to make substantive breakthroughs as long as governments continued to equate security with armaments. The focus of the seminar this year had been nuclear weapons. The non-governmental organizations urged the Conference to review NGO participation and access to all international disarmament fora. The culture of militarism that had gained around the world was pushing the cornerstone of the disarmament regime, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), towards a dangerous precipice. Drastic measures were needed in order to arrest this development. The Conference on Disarmament had a unique opportunity to do so at the forthcoming seventh NPT Review Conference. If the Conference was able to adopt a programme of work and start substantive discussions on nuclear disarmament, a fissile materials treat, the prevention of an arms race in outer space, and/or other items on the proposed agenda, it would be endowing the Review Conference with a much needed head-start on its own work.

AN MYUNG HUN (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) said that as everyone was aware, the Conference on Disarmament was now almost paralysed. It was no exaggeration to say that the fate of the Conference was at risk. It was true that the absolute majority of Member States had made continuous efforts to adopt a programme of work and to start substantial discussions on the main issues. However, all these efforts had ended in vain and the Conference was now bogged down in a situation whereby it could not move forward.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea did not think that the problem lay in procedure or any other working method. There was a big political obstacle ahead of the Conference which was the existence of political will to block progress in the Conference. The Conference was a multilateral negotiating forum and multilateral negotiations should be based on a spirit of multilateralism. Any forms of multilateral talk or negotiation would surely fail if unilateral policy or position was pursued or insisted upon. The Conference would be subject to failure if one country would not listen to others and continued to say no. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea had tasted the unhappy result of such talks through its own experience.

If the paralysed conference was to be revived, the negative political approach should be decisively changed. The delegation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea believed that the Conference would be able to say that it had a real political basis on which to proceed to achieving agreement on a programme of work only when each and every Member demonstrated its political will collectively to advance the work of the Conference in the interests of al human kind. As long as the Conference was without this political basis, it would suffer from setbacks, no matter how many meetings and discussions it would hold and how many proposals it tabled. This was the lesson learned from the reality of the Conference that had spent 10 years in vain. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea appealed to all delegations to make every effort to reach a solution.

IDRISS JAZAIRY (Algeria) said that on behalf of the Arab Member and Observer States to the Conference, he wished to address the Conference today in view of the importance that the Arab region gave to the subject of nuclear disarmament. Arab States expressed their firm desire and earnest endeavour in order to work to prepare an atmosphere of security and stability at the regional and international levels. The Arab Group reiterated its attachment to the resolutions of the General Assembly which affirmed that a multilateral framework was the basic principle of negotiations in the field of disarmament and non-proliferation. This was confirmation of the universality of this question which necessitated the collaboration of all States on an equal footing. The extent and the acuteness of the challenges in the security field made the Arab countries more than ever fully attached to this framework to reach a solution for all pending questions. This confirmed the attachment of the Arab States to the Conference on Disarmament and their dependence on it.

Ambassador Jazairy said that Arab States were fully aware and convinced that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was one of the most important treaties that had been concluded and it had proved its viability. The fact that the majority of Sates had acceded to it was testimony that the Convention had kept away the phantom of a nuclear war. From this premise, Arab countries had rejected the nuclear option by joining the NPT. In view of their keen attachment to non-proliferation, Arab States gave great importance to the need to dismantle these fatal weapons and called on States to respect their commitments, particularly those adopted at the Sixth Review Conference of the NPT in 2000, especially the 13 steps agreed upon. Arab States hoped that the Seventh Review Conference, which would be held in May 2005, would be an opportunity for the Nuclear States to reaffirm and strengthen their commitments.

The spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East constituted a threat to peace and security and was a destabilizing factor at the regional and international levels. Arab States had endeavoured in all fora to raise awareness of the danger of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. The final document of the Sixth Review Conference had been very clear in reaffirming the necessity of Israel to accede to the Treaty and to open its nuclear facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Today's challenges called on all States to work together at the Conference on Disarmament. Regrettably, the work in the Conference had been stalled for many years because of some intransigent positions. To overcome these stumbling blocks, Arab States would deploy all efforts within the Group of 21 to resuscitate the work of the Conference. For example, Arab States had accepted to work positively with the suggest of Ambassador Chris Sanders of the Netherlands with regard to the appointment of Special Coordinators, and they hoped that other Member States on their part would show the political will and realism in order to allow the Conference to agree on a programme of work which considered the security needs of all countries in a balanced way. Arab Sates warned that although there were many multilateral fora which discussed disarmament, the Conference was the only multilateral international forum which could elaborate Treaties and Conventions on this topic. All States had to work in order to preserve this asset and build a new international legal order which guaranteed peace in the world.

TIM CAUGHLEY (New Zealand), President of the Conference on Disarmament, said that in his national capacity, he wished to welcome the statement commemorating International Women's Day and hoped that next year, representatives of the non-governmental organizations could present it to the Conference in person.

KJETIL PAULSEN (Norway) said that he had listened to the statement of the non-governmental organization with considerable interest and hoped that in the future, the Conference would be able to listen to civil society through their own voice. Today's practise at the Conference concerning non-governmental organizations was peculiar. The Conference was deadlocked, but it should dare to invite representatives of civil society to its podium and listen to their concerns.

Norway had also listened to the statement by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. He agreed that insisting on an irresponsible and unilateral approach presented a danger. As a first step, it would be helpful if the Democratic People's Republic of Korea could re-join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and renew contacts with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

RICHARD FALLON (Ireland) said that Ireland joined the comments made by Norway concerning the participation of civil society in the work of the Conference. He hoped that the spirit of the words of the Secretary-General and the High Level Panel on Challenges, Threats and Change would be reflected in the Conference and that non-governmental organizations would be allowed to address the Conference directly.

CHRIS SANDERS (Netherlands) said he had asked to speak in order to support what had been said by Norway and Ireland. The Netherlands was also convinced that civil society must and could be heard directly in the Conference on Disarmament. He recalled the advice of the Secretary-General in this respect when he had called for more organized and sustained dialogue with the NGO community. The Conference should take up this issue.

VOLKER HEINSBERG (Germany) said that he joined the statements made by the President in his national capacity, Norway, Ireland and the Netherlands.

AN MYUNG HUN (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) said that he wanted to respond to the statement made by Norway. He believed that there was a bit of digression from the main point. He hoped that Norway understood that there was a challenge and a political programme that always forced and compelled the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to do something that it did not want to do. He hoped that Norway got the main point.

TIM CAUGHLEY (New Zealand), President of the Conference on Disarmament, said that he wanted to put forward what may amount to tentative conclusions. He had been mindful of the considerable significance and importance of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and thus had been trying to identify positive rather than negative elements in the current predicament of the Conference. The food for thought non-paper put forward informally by his predecessor, Ambassador Chris Sanders, had served a useful purpose in that regard. He had encountered several hesitations about securing firm instructions on the "food for thought" paper which had no formal status, but he was glad that an overwhelming number of delegations had responded to his efforts and provided him with valuable insights into the degree on their flexibility. This was the first positive matter to report. The second positive aspect was the readiness of delegations to get down to serious work on the basis of one or more of the four priority or core issues.

That widespread reaction needed to be seen against the full spectrum of views. At one end of the spectrum was the readiness to consider agreeing to a work programme that included more than one of the four core issues and was conditional on agreement that negotiations of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty got promptly under way. At the other end of the spectrum, the readiness to negotiate an FMCT was conditional on there being a mandate that contained certain minimum requirements, especially verification, as part of a work programme that contemplated discussion of the other three core issues. Ambassador Caughley said that on the face of it, this simply represented the status quo, the current deadlock. He however was inclined to take a more positive view of the situation.

Ambassador Caughley said that the final positive sign that he wished to mention related to the future of the Conference. Concern about the relevance of the Conference and credibility was widely shared. The positive indications or impulses that he had identified led him to put forward for reflection several badly stated equations: securing agreement on an FMCT mandate without conditions might entail the acceptance of discussion mandates on the other three core issues, and its corollary - security agreement on discussion mandates on the three core issues appeared to entail acceptance of an FMCT mandate without conditions; and the readiness to accept the negotiation of an FMCT entailed the need to ensure that that negotiation encompassed as a minimum the inclusion of a verification mechanism. By the words "as a minimum", he was alluding to the concerns of some States that a work programme that met this need would also include discussion mandates on the other core issues. However, it was relatively easy to state the nature of the problem and much harder to suggest an answer.

In conclusion, Ambassador Caughley said the proof of the pudding would be in the eating. While it would not be a particularly palatable pudding, it would restore to the Conference on Disarmament its credibility as a negotiation body and more, importantly by addressing non-proliferation of nuclear weapons through the negotiation of an FMCT, it would contribute to the security of every nation.


For use of the information media; not an official record

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