CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT HOLDS A BRIEF PLENARY MEETING, FOLLOWED BY INFORMAL CONSULTATIONS ON A PROGRAMME OF WORK

The Conference on Disarmament this afternoon held a brief plenary meeting, following which it held consultations in an informal setting on document CD/WP.622 entitled “Draft decision on possible elements of a programme of work” and discussed the working paper “Back to Basics - the Programme of Work” presented by the Netherlands.

In the public plenary, the President of the Conference on Disarmament, Ambassador Duong Chi Dung of Viet Nam, informed that António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, had appointed Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, as the Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament and his personal representative to the Conference on Disarmament.

Argentina said that the adoption of a programme of work that only referred to a set of activities and not to the establishment of subsidiary bodies would be the most viable alternative to the 20-year-old deadlock in the Conference on Disarmament. Argentina recalled the concerns and recommendations by the United Nations General Assembly concerning the lack of the adoption of a programme of work by the Conference on Disarmament, all of which had been adopted by consensus in the General Assembly.

The Conference then continued its deliberations in an informal setting, at the end of which the President of the Conference on Disarmament remarked that most delegations shared the feeling that, due to time constraints, this was not the right time to adopt any draft decision, adding that the discussions had provided useful elements for future work. An assessment of the work accomplished during the presidency of Viet Nam and the views on the ideas and proposals made by Member States during the formal and informal consultations would be presented to the Conference in a President’s statement.

The Conference on Disarmament will hold its next plenary at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 14 August, to hear an address by Ms. Valovaya, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva and Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament.

It will then hold a panel discussion on its agenda item 3, the prevention of an arms race in outer space, with the participation of Gennady Gatilov, Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations Office at Geneva, Juan Eduardo Eguiguren, Permanent Representative of Chile to the United Nations Office at Geneva, and Daniel Porras of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. This will be the last plenary held under the presidency of Viet Nam.


For use of the information media; not an official record