CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT BEGINS THIRD AND FINAL SEGMENT OF 2015 SESSION

The Conference on Disarmament resumed its work in a formal plenary today, the first of the third and final part of its 2015 session It was addressed by the Permanent Representative of Japan on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Conference also heard statements from the President of the Conference and the representative of Pakistan.

Ambassador Henk Cor Van Der Kwast of the Netherlands, President of the Conference on Disarmament, welcomed delegates to the third part of the 2015 session and noted that the updated plan for the Netherlands’ Presidency had been circulated among them.

The Permanent Representative of Japan made a statement to mark the seventieth anniversary this month of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He reiterated Japan’s commitment to achieving its goal of a nuclear weapon-free world. It was important to convey the realities of the use of nuclear weapons to future generations in order to maintain international momentum to meeting that goal, he said. That was the motivation behind Japan’s Youth Communicators for a World without Nuclear Weapons programme launched in 2013, as well as its Special Communicators for a World without Nuclear Weapons programme. In that context, 22 teenage Youth Communicators, including high-school students from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, would attend the Conference on Disarmament plenary on Tuesday, 18 August. The representative said Japan regretted that although the entire international community shared the common goal of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons, the single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum that was the Conference on Disarmament had failed to negotiate any legal instrument over the last 18 years and asked members of the Conference to show flexibility in fulfilling its mandate.

Responding a request from Pakistan for clarification regarding the informal meeting scheduled for Thursday, 6 August, the President of the Conference said the Netherlands Presidency plan featured four main issues that would be discussed informally. The four issues were nuclear disarmament, a fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT) which included a report containing recommendations of the Group of Governmental Experts for advancing FMCT negotiations, negative security assurances; and the prevention of an arms race in outer space.

Regarding the informal meeting scheduled for Thursday, 6 August, Pakistan requested the President remove the report of the Group of Governmental Experts report from the documentation for the discussion because it believed the report should not be the basis for the negotiation of a future treaty banning the production of fissile material.

The next plenary of the Conference on Disarmament will take place at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 11 August 2015.

For use of the information media; not an official record

DC15/033E