CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT CONTINUES HIGH-LEVEL SEGMENT; HEARS FROM IRELAND, ITALY AND CHILE

The Conference on Disarmament this afternoon continued its High-Level Segment. The Foreign Minister of Ireland and the Deputy Foreign Ministers of Italy and Chile were welcomed by Conference President Vaanchig Purevdori of Mongolia who invited them to address the Conference on Disarmament.

Charles Flanagan, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland, said the convulsions and bloodshed seen in so many regions suggested that nuclear weapons had not shielded the world from conflict or provided stability. It was a fact that 17,000 inhumane nuclear weapons continued to exist and with them the potential for a nuclear weapon detonation at any time. The potential appalling price of continuing to rely on nuclear weapons was too high. The Minister called for empowerment of women in arms control and disarmament negotiations, as well as the expansion of the membership of the Conference and its engagement with civil society.

Benedetto Della Vedova, Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy, said the deadlock in the Conference was no longer acceptable. He warmly welcomed efforts to involve civil society in its work. Italy strongly supported the ongoing diplomatic efforts of the P5+1 and Iran to reach a final agreement on the Iranian Nuclear Programme and sincerely hoped that the remaining differences could be bridged in time for the 31 March deadline for reaching a political deal. Mr. Vedova said the Helsinki Conference on the establishment of a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East should be convened as soon as possible.

Edgardo Riveros, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of Chile, considered ways to put the Conference back on the path to negotiation such as a new special session devoted to disarmament in the General Assembly or other United Nations fora. Chile supported the humanitarian approach to nuclear disarmament, and said the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones had become ever more important given decreasing cooperation between nuclear powers. It was urgent that the Conference became open to all United Nations Member States: it should not be an exclusive club that tried to take decisions for all.

Ministers of Ireland, Italy and Chile made statements in this afternoon’s plenary.

The Conference on Disarmament will next meet in public at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 5 March to hear statements from dignitaries of Mongolia, Iraq and Colombia. Meeting summaries of previous Conference on Disarmament plenaries can be found here.


High-Level Segment Statements

CHARLES FLANAGAN, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland, said nuclear disarmament remained one of the key moral questions of our time. The risk of a nuclear detonation remained very real 70 years after the end of World War II and the terrible scenes of devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As the initiator of the United Nations resolutions which led to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Ireland had an abiding concern that the Treaty be honoured and implemented. Some voices said they benefitted from the stability nuclear weapons offered to the world order. But the convulsions and bloodshed seen in so many regions suggested that nuclear weapons had not shielded them from conflict or provided stability, said Minister Flanagan. The consequences of a nuclear weapon detonation would negate utterly the stability of the world order, possibly for generations. They should not shy away from the fact that 17,000 inhumane nuclear weapons continued to exist and with them the potential for a nuclear weapon detonation at any time, he said.

The Minister commended Acting Secretary-General of the Conference Michael Møller for his initiative in organizing a Civil Society Forum later this month, regretting that the Conference could not benefit from civil society expertise in a more systematic and dynamic way. Ireland strongly believed that the Conference should expand its membership. If the goal of disarmament was to promote peace and security why should a majority of United Nations Member States be excluded from the body which was mandated to negotiate legally binding instruments, he asked.

Women needed to be empowered and given equal representation in relation to arms control and disarmament negotiations, said the Minister. Research suggested that for every two men who would die of cancer due to radiation exposure as a consequence of a nuclear weapon detonation, three women would die. The disproportionate effect on children was even greater, more so for girls. Armed violence had a disproportionate effect on women and children everywhere, said the Minister, noting that Ireland would co-organize a side event at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in April to study gender and nuclear weapons. Ireland stood with Austria and New Agenda Coalition partners in the aim expressed through the “Austrian Pledge” and the possibility of a legal framework or instrument for nuclear disarmament. While Ireland had chosen not to include nuclear power in its energy mix it recognized the right of all States parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and encouraged the ongoing efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency to coordinate and share lessons learned from Fukushima accident in Japan.

There were reasons to be optimist, the Minister said, recalling the hope represented by the entry into force of the Arms Trade Treaty in 2014, which Ireland was one of the first of 130 countries to sign. The world had been able to agree that chemical and biological weapons had no place in modern warfare. As the one hundredth anniversary of the first use of chemical weapons in World War I approached the international community could take solace from the strong and united reaction to the appalling use of chemical weapons in Syria and continuing joint efforts to destroy them. Likewise, the international community continued to move to rid the world of conventional weapons, landmines and cluster munitions, and engage with new challenges such as lethal autonomous weapons systems.

It was important to put the humanitarian dimension front and central in disarmament deliberations, said the Minister, noting that Pope Francis and many other religious leaders had cast doubt on the moral rightness of keeping nuclear weapons for deterrence purposes. Nuclear disarmament did not mean leaving themselves defenceless. It meant choosing a different method of defending ourselves in order to ensure the survival of the planet. Furthermore, spending millions on modernizing weapons systems ran counter to the direction favoured by the vast majority of countries. The potential appalling price of continuing to rely on nuclear weapons was too high.

BENEDETTO DELLA VEDOVA, Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy, said the deadlock in the Conference on Disarmament was no longer acceptable and urged the Conference to resume its work without further delay. Efforts to involve civil society in the Conference’s discussions would enable it to benefit from valuable external expertise and thus advance its work. Italy strongly welcomed the Civil Society Forum proposed by the Acting Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament for 19 March 2015. The upcoming months would be crucial for both disarmament and non-proliferation, said the Minister, affirming Italy’s full support to the implementation of the 2010 Action Plan ahead of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference this Spring. Within the framework of the Conference on Disarmament the negotiations on a treaty banning the production of fissile material remained a priority.

With regard to major regional crises, the Minister recalled Italy’s significant contribution to the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons. Italy provided concrete assistance to the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons by making an Italian port available for the trans-loading of Syrian chemical agents before their subsequent destruction on a United States vessel. Moreover, Italy strongly supported the ongoing diplomatic efforts of the P5+1 and Iran to reach a final agreement on the Iranian Nuclear Programme and sincerely hoped that the remaining differences could be bridged in time for the 31 March deadline for reaching a political deal. Ireland fully supported the tireless efforts to reach consensus on a date and agenda for the Helsinki Conference on the establishment of a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East as soon as possible. Italy was fully committed to the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty that would strengthen the international non-proliferation regime, significantly contributing to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons.

Italy increasingly paid special attention to education, training and institutional capacity as essential elements for fostering international peace and security. At the end of March Italy would host a two-day “Edoardo Amaldi Conference” which was an important forum for experts and scientists to discuss enhanced nuclear safety, security, safeguards and non-proliferation. Italy would also host a high-level event entitled “The Nuclear Security Summit 2016 and Beyond: the Role of Training and Support Centres and Centres of Excellence” in Bologna from 7 to 8 May 2015. As a candidate for a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council for the 2017 to 2018 term Italy would further promote the disarmament agenda at the United Nations, concluded the Minister.

EDGARDO RIVEROS, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of Chile, said after 16 years without multilateral commitments from the Conference on Disarmament it was time to open their minds to other formula, hand-in-hand with civil society who had been conspicuously absent. Chile regretted that the draft decision submitted by Mexico to open the Conference to participation by civil society had not been adopted. Chile was open to new ways to put the Conference back on the path to negotiation, perhaps through a new special session devoted to disarmament in the General Assembly or other United Nations fora, said the Vice-Minister. Chile wished to consolidate a world order based on unlimited respect for international law and cooperation in which weapons occupied a secondary place, as envisioned in the United Nations Charter.

Chile was a peaceful country which saw international security as a global common goal which should be provided to all States regardless of their size, population or military might. Therefore all members of the international community should participate in seeking solutions of a multidimensional nature to global problems. On several occasions Chile had been a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and had launched initiatives to ensure the safety of civilians in conflict, and the rights of women. Today Chile decisively supported the humanitarian approach to nuclear disarmament which placed individuals at the centre of peace and security action. Chile endorsed the “Austrian Pledge” made following the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. The Oslo, Nayarit and Vienna conferences showed the need to take practical steps to achieve the reduction of arsenals, said the Vice-Minister. The establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones had become ever more important given decreasing cooperation between nuclear powers, especially those which had announced extremely worrying billion-dollar modernizations of their nuclear arsenal and technology.

The forces that drove the world had changed. While Chile understood the need to reconcile public global interests with the needs and fears of some States regarding national security, it was difficult to understand why a major United Nations entity remained inactive. The Conference on Disarmament had a respectable history. Now it needed to remove suspicion, said the Vice-Minister. The rapid evolution of mankind over the past few decades called for a modern approach with a vision of the future. One of the most urgent steps was for the Conference to become open to all Member States of the United Nations. It should not be an exclusive club that tried to take decisions for all, concluded the Minister.


For use of the information media; not an official record

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