CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT CONTINUES TO DISCUSS DRAFT DECISIONS ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ITS PROGRAMME OF WORK
The Conference on Disarmament this morning continued to discuss two draft decisions proposed by the President yesterday on the appointment of chairs and special coordinators and on a schedule of activities for the Conference on Disarmament, the working groups and the special coordinators, up to the end of the 2009 session.
The Western Group, the Eastern European Group and Mexico expressed their readiness to support the proposed documents.
Several delegations said that it was hard for their capitals to understand what reasons were preventing the Conference from adopting these documents and starting to work, especially in light of the current positive international atmosphere. They expressed their puzzlement with regard to this new stalemate and what were the reasons for it.
In concluding remarks, Ambassador Roberto Garcia Moritan of Argentina, President of the Conference, said that from his consultations it appeared that the Conference was in the same stalemate today as it had been yesterday. Preserving the constructive atmosphere of the Conference was important and he believed that the weekend would offer time to reflect on the current situation. Also, he believed that nobody had any doubt about the difficulties and the requirements that would result in the delay. They had to take this into account. They had to take a decision on the documents as soon as possible.
China said that there was a saying in China that said that one should not pick a melon that was not ripe and that a ripe melon would fall by itself. The melon was not ripe yet in the Conference on Disarmament. If everyone wanted to eat a tasty melon they still needed to be patient. China still had some questions about the proposed drafts.
China noted that the proposed documents were supposed to implement the adopted programme of work and they should thus constitute a formal and comprehensive package. But now they had two drafts before them and China still needed to know what the relationship was between those two drafts. Further, the adopted programme of work was only limited to 2009. However, they saw from draft document CD/1867 that the mandates were not clearly limited to 2009. He also knew that some delegations expected that the mandates would be carried on in the years ahead. This was a time bomb that was being integrated into the foundation of the building and it would explode next year if it was not addressed today.
Draft decision CD/1867 on the implementation of CD/1864 (the adopted programme of work) is a proposed list of names for the appointment of chairs of the four working groups and the three special coordinators.
Draft document CD/1866 is a proposed schedule of activities for the meetings of the Conference on Disarmament’s four working groups and three special coordinators from 29 June to 18 September 2009.
Speaking this morning were the delegations of Sweden on behalf of the Western Group, Romania on behalf of the East European Group, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, China and Pakistan.
The next meeting of the Conference on Disarmament will be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 3 June under the Presidency of Australia. The President left open the a possibility of having a meeting earlier. On 3 June, Australia’s former Foreign Minster, Garett Evans, would address the Conference in his capacity as co-Chair of the New International Commission on Non-proliferation and Disarmament.
Statements
MAGNUS HELLGREN (Sweden) speaking on behalf of the Western Group, said that the Western Group was ready to accept the two proposed documents. These would take the Conference to the next stage and help start the implementation of its programme of work.
DANIELA BLEDANCA (Romania) speaking on behalf of the Eastern European Group, said that the Eastern European Group also supported the two papers and remained engaged to help bring forward the work of the Conference.
MABEL GOMEZ OLIVER (Mexico) expressed her appreciation for the professionalism of the President. Unfortunately it had so far not been compensated with a consensus. She also expressed her delegation’s frustration: between today and yesterday the Conference should have been able to reach consensus on the discussed documents. They now had a programme of work, after more than 10 years without one, yet they were unable to move forward and start substantive work. It was hard for her capital to understand what reasons prevented the Conference from starting its work, especially in light of the current positive international atmosphere. Mexico regretted the fact that the Conference continued to postpone the start of its work. Nevertheless, it remained hopeful that the Conference would be able to move forward soon. Mexico was ready to adopt both proposed documents.
JOHN DUNCAN (United Kingdom) said that he had to admit to a certain degree of puzzlement over what exactly was happening. They were discussing a procedural issue, not a substantive one. The proposal had been circulated well over a week: that should have been enough for delegations to get their orders from their capitals.
There was pressure to address disarmament issues outside of the Conference, as had happened with cluster munitions; this was not the way they wished for things to go forward. He was puzzled about what exactly the problem was and found himself in difficulty in reporting back to his capital on the reason for the current situation. Could the President formally ask who was not ready to accept the decisions?
ROBERTO GARCIA MORITAN (Argentina), President of the Conference on Disarmament, said that after yesterday’s plenary meeting he had continued consultations to see whether they could make progress on the minor details which remained in front of them. Consultations had also continued this morning. They were currently still in a situation similar to that during yesterday’s plenary. The silence in the chamber made it clear that they were in the same situation as yesterday morning.
ERIC DANON (France) said that there were days when the atmosphere was somewhat heavy, some days where silence was good and others when it was ambiguous. The Conference needed to get out of this difficult moment. He did not think that that they should point fingers at anyone. But it could be good to know if there were delegations that were against the documents or whether they had simply not received instructions from their capitals. Just knowing that fact and that no delegations basically opposed the adoption would already be a positive step forward.
AKIO SUDA (Japan) joined what his colleagues had just said. These had been very constructive suggestions. The Conference could not come back into plenary every week, just sitting around without saying anything.
ROBERTO GARCIA MORITAN (Argentina), President of the Conference on Disarmament, said that they were in a rather unusual situation. A number of delegations in the regional groups had expressed their views and a number of them had stressed the importance of addressing this matter this morning. From his consultations it appeared that they were in the same stalemate as they had been yesterday. Some delegations had expressed their points of view yesterday and all had a clear picture of the situation in which they were now. And yet, he believed that there was a possibility for the Conference to find a solution in the next few hours.
The Conference had to preserve the constructive atmosphere in order to make firm progress as speedily as possible. Mr. Garcia Moritan said that he understood the concerns expressed by some delegations as well as their wish to see the Conference taking a decision straight away. Nothing would be more pleasing to him if it did so. However the Conference was not yet in a position to take action on those documents. Preserving the constructive atmosphere of the Conference was important and he believed that the weekend would offer time to reflect on the current situation. Also, he believed that nobody had any doubt about the difficulties and the requirements that would result in the delay. They had to take this into account. They had to take a decision on the documents as soon as possible.
Mr. Garcia Moritan said that he was quite sure that those delegations that required more time would employ their weekend for that and that the diplomatic capacity of his successor, the Ambassador of Australia, would help to ensure that the Conference would manage to get underway in the next few days. In final remarks he expressed his thanks for the support of the Secretariat, the coordinators of the regional groups, China and the P6. He also expressed the belief that the Conference was on the threshold of major developments.
LI YANG (China) said that he highly appreciated the efforts the President had made. At the first day of his presidency they had said that his work would be extremely difficult, but he had performed in an excellent way. His predecessor, the Algerian Ambassador, had come out with a design and the current President had laid out the foundation for the work of the Conference. Laying the foundations was no less important than coming up with a blueprint; it was the commencement of actual work. If it was done in a wrong manner, the construction might not be stable in the end.
Mr. Li said that there was a saying in China that said that one should not pick a melon that was not ripe and that a ripe melon would fall by itself. He noted that the melon was not ripe yet. If everyone wanted to eat a tasty melon they still needed to be patient. The time would come soon when the melon would taste good. Why was the melon not ripe yet? China still had some questions about the proposed drafts. They were not aware of how the chairs would chair the substantive work: only a list of names was proposed but the Conference had not discussed their mandate. Would the chairs hold their positions only this year or would they go on during the next year?
The drafts had been a surprise to Beijing, said Mr. Li. These documents were supposed to implement the adopted programme of work and they should thus constitute a formal and comprehensive package. But now they had two drafts before them and China still needed to know what the relationship between those two drafts was. What was the process for implementing them?
Further, the adopted programme of work was only limited to 2009. However, they saw from draft document CD/1867 that the mandates were not clearly limited to 2009. He also knew that some delegations expected that the mandates would be carried on in the years ahead. This was a time bomb that was being integrated into the foundation of the building and it would explode next year if it was not addressed today. The Conference needed to clearly define the mandate; how the chairs would conduct their work and how they would rotate.
Some delegations wanted to have more time to study these drafts, said Mr. Li. This should not take years or months, but rather days. Only 24 hours had elapsed since the President had circulated the drafts. Some delegations needed more time and had to wait for instructions from their capitals. It did not mean that they would be against the decision. Waiting for instructions did not mean that they were fighting against a decision. There was a political will in place and there should be no difficulty to come out with an agreement. The Conference had to wait for the sweet melon to fall to the ground.
ROBERTO GARCIA MORITAN (Argentina), President of the Conference on Disarmament, said that the Conference had to wait for the melon to become sweeter. While they were waiting for that to happen, it was important to keep a constructive atmosphere.
AFTAB KHOKHER (Pakistan) expressed his appreciation for the efforts of the President and said that they shared the views that had just been expressed by China. But he also assured that once the melon was ripe, it would taste very good.
For use of information media; not an official record
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