FIRST COMMITTEE HEARS ADDITIONAL CONCERNS ON NUCLEAR TESTING AND CONVENTIONAL ARMS

25 October 1995

Press Release
GA/DIS/3028

FIRST COMMITTEE HEARS ADDITIONAL CONCERNS ON NUCLEAR TESTING AND CONVENTIONAL ARMS

19951025 Democratic People's Republic of Korea Says 'Nuclear Issue' Being Resolved Efficiently

While several speakers this afternoon welcomed the recent accession by France, the United Kingdom and the United States to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Rarotonga Treaty), the representative of New Zealand said that continued nuclear testing by China and France was a "deplorable step backwards", reviving fears that the nuclear arms race was not over.

Speaking this afternoon before the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), the representative of Sweden read a statement by his country's Minister for Foreign Affairs which said that while that decision was gratifying, "our demand that all nuclear tests should cease immediately stands firm". The representative of Colombia said that the resumption of nuclear testing represented a violation of commitments to extreme moderation made by the nuclear-weapon States at last summer's Review and Extension Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

The representative of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea said that although the 50-year-old division of the Korean peninsula still existed, the "nuclear issue" was being resolved efficiently since his country and the United States had adopted the Agreed Framework in Geneva in October last year.

Several speakers called for enhanced effectiveness of the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, as well as for progress in efforts to achieve the ultimate elimination of anti-personnel land-mines.

Statements were also made by the representatives of Poland, Slovakia, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Nigeria. The representative of France spoke in right of reply.

The First Committee will meet again at 10 a.m. Thursday, 26 October, to continue its general exchange of views.

Committee Work Programme

The First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) met this afternoon to continue its general debate on a wide range of disarmament initiatives and a number of international disarmament agreements. Those include the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water (partial test-ban Treaty), the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and of Their Destruction (chemical weapons Convention), and the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (biological weapons Convention).

Other agreements under discussion include the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (Convention on indiscriminate conventional weapons), the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (Treaty of Tlatelolco), the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Rarotonga), and the Treaty on the Prohibition of the Emplacement of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Seabed and the Ocean Floor and in the Subsoil Thereof (Seabed Treaty).

Other matters being considered by the Committee include the 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the States parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, negotiations aimed at concluding a comprehensive test-ban treaty, the Register of Conventional Arms, and the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the international non-proliferation regime. The Committee was also likely to consider such bilateral agreements as the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START).

(For background, see Press Release GA/DIS/3020 of 11 October.)

COLIN KEATING (New Zealand) said this had been a difficult year, in which the international community had had to think hard about its security needs. It was therefore a good time for a review of the situation, in hopes of a better year in 1996.

Last May's NPT review and extension conference had come up with principles and objectives by which parties to the NPT would measure progress on non-proliferation and disarmament. There must be tangible progress in order to build confidence that the shared goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons was achieved. As for the comprehensive test-ban treaty, the pace of negotiations would be accelerated if China and the Russian Federation adopted the same position taken by the United States, France and the United Kingdom on the scope of the test ban. Complete prohibition of any nuclear explosion,

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however small, was essential if nuclear disarmament and the non-proliferation benefits sought by the international community were to be delivered.

New Zealand found it inexplicable and unacceptable that China and France were still testing nuclear weapons. Such actions, in total disregard of overwhelming international opinion, were of grave concern to New Zealand, indeed to nations in every part of the world. Nuclear testing was a deplorable step backwards from the commitments all NPT parties had assumed in May, but New Zealand and its South Pacific Forum neighbours were particularly angered by the resumption of French nuclear testing in the region. Calls on China and France to end their testing programmes would not cease until testing ceased.

As for nuclear-weapon-free zones, when the nations of an entire region freely chose to renounce nuclear weapons forever, the international community moved closer to the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world. He welcomed all such zones, adding that respect by the nuclear Powers for such zones was critical to their effectiveness. In that regard, he welcomed the decision by France, the United States and the United Kingdom to sign the protocols of the Rarotonga Treaty.

The importance New Zealand attached to non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament was fully matched by its concerns in the field of conventional weapons. The international community must urgently seek remedies to a situation in which conflicts -- and their unacceptable civilian toll -- were fuelled by the widespread availability and irresponsible accumulation of conventional armaments.

EUGENIUSZ WYZNER (Poland) said that since Poland had associated itself with the statement which Spain made on behalf of the European Union, he would offer remarks of a more general nature. He quoted a member of the International Court of Justice, the late Manfred Lachs who said, "At San Francisco we believed we were setting two objectives on the road to peace: decolonization and disarmament. We thought that decolonization would take at least 50 years, while disarmament we could achieve in a decade. In fact, it turned out to be exactly the other way around." Those words exemplified how far we had fallen behind the anticipated target date.

He said the most pressing business still pending was the completion of a comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty. Regrettably, restraint had not yet been demonstrated by some of the nuclear-weapon Powers. Poland was persuaded that a commitment by all five nuclear-weapon States would add the decisive momentum to efforts aimed at the timely end of the comprehensive test-ban treaty negotiations. He was encouraged by the increasing convergence of views on verification, specifically concerning the architecture of a future international monitoring system and procedures governing on-site inspection.

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He regretted that the Conference on Disarmament did not produce results on the question of assurances to non-nuclear-weapon States. It was even more regrettable that the Conference on Disarmament was unable to address the issue of the prohibition of production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. It was imperative that a "cut-off" be examined, without further delay. Regarding the chemical weapons Convention, the slow pace of its ratification held back its practical application. All States -- particularly those with substantial stockpiles of chemical weapons -- were urged to sign the chemical weapons Convention without further delay. He supported efforts to strengthen the biological weapons Convention and believed that it was imperative to enhance international cooperation in promoting peaceful applications of biotechnology and prevent the proliferation of biological weapons.

He said that consideration of all aspects of conventional arms was needed, in addition to the attention they were receiving in the Register of Conventional Arms, to which Poland had been submitting annual reports. He was pleased that anti-personnel land-mines had been currently receiving increased attention by the international community. Poland had declared a moratorium on the export of anti-personnel land-mines without self-destruct or self- neutralizing devices.

OKSANA TOMOVA (Slovakia) said that the world now saw possibilities for global disarmament which could scarcely have been predicted a few years ago. This year's indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty promised stability and favourable conditions for the non-proliferation regime and nuclear disarmament. Indefinite extension was a fundamental precondition for success. Her country supported NPT objectives regarding the creation of nuclear-weapon-free zones, an important potential contribution to regional and global security. It welcomed the accession of Belarus, Kazakstan, Ukraine and South Africa to the NPT as non-nuclear weapon States. It appealed once again to the small number of States still outside the NPT to accede to the Treaty.

Slovakia had also noted with satisfaction that the 1995 NPT review and extension Conference had reaffirmed the safeguards system of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a fundamental element of the Treaty, playing as it did an irreplaceable role in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It fully supported all measures aimed at strengthening the safeguards system and avoiding violations of obligations, as had happened in the case of Iraq and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

Her country, she went on, had now joined the family of countries which had already ratified the chemical weapons Convention, and hoped that this move would contribute to the global effort for an early entry into force of the Convention. The Slovak Republic saw the Convention, above all, as a disarmament treaty. It was also designed for cooperation and assistance in case of the use of chemical weapons or related danger. The recent tragic

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accident in Japan proved that terrorists were able to use even such barbarous means as chemical poisonous agents.

Slovakia considered that effective control of transfers of strategic and sensitive materials and technologies was a crucial way of asserting the principles of global security policy. Her country had been one of the very first to respond to the respective United Nations guidelines and to introduce an embargo on exports of anti-personnel land-mines.

FERNANDO GUILLEN (Peru) said that Latin America and the Caribbean, in concluding the Treaty of Tlatelolco, had been the first region to create a nuclear-weapon-free zone. Looking back over that experience, Peru believed that there were three key factors to be considered in envisaging creation of such a zone.

First, any effort at regional disarmament must take into account the specific conditions and characteristics of the region. Second, it must recognize the existence of different regional levels of progress towards disarmament, from security agreements to confidence-building measures, all of which were crucial to the formulation of effective agreements. Third, because of the unique characteristics of a given region, it was often difficult to transfer disarmament experiences to other regions.

In that connection, it was worth stressing that the security of the Latin American region was intimately linked to the processes of economic and social development. Hence the need for integrated regional security schemes which articulated the social, economic, humanitarian and environmental aspects in the same breath as the military issues.

Within that conceptual framework, the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms was the base mechanism for the international regulation of the arms trade. His country believed that the Register contributed to building the confidence which was the first step on the road to disarmament negotiation at the global, regional or subregional levels. However, the mechanism's effectiveness would be enhanced by the inclusion of information on current arms stockpiles, as well as on local arms production and the acquisition and incorporation of new categories of weapons. Peru was alarmed at the persistence of clandestine practices aimed at evading controls on the international transfer of weapons, and at the consequent rise of investment in armaments, to the detriment of development programmes. Peru had proposed the establishment of specialized bodies to study such practices in conjunction with the United Nations.

International arms transfers were politically and socially destabilizing and required a global approach to examine causes and consequences. Illicit or covert arms transfers were both the cause and the effect of the excessive and uncontrolled production of weapons. Inaction in the face of that traffic was

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leading to its unprecedented intensification, a particularly dangerous development given the ongoing crises, fraught with the potential for conflict, recurring around the world.

This year the international community had renewed efforts to eliminate the use of anti-personnel land-mines. Peru, which had suffered gravely from that scourge, supported the creation of a voluntary fund to finance information programmes on the removal of mines.

Peru deplored the recent resumption of nuclear testing by certain nuclear-weapon States.

ESAM ABID (Saudi Arabia) said that historically Saudi Arabia had supported all treaties which sought to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Regarding the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, he called upon all concerned parties to adopt practical measures to make this objective a reality. Some countries had failed to submit their nuclear regimes to the safeguards of the IAEA. A number of controls and criteria were needed to achieve progress in all fields of elimination of the weapons of mass destruction.

Saudi Arabia had contributed to the Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. So many had suffered from the existence of land-mines, which had become a threat to the inhabitants of countries bordering those where the mines were placed.

The Register of Conventional Arms was a confidence-building measure, yet it could not be effective until it applied to weapons of mass destruction as well, and covered conventional weapons which were nationally produced. It also needed to be applied in a balanced manner.

PAK GIL YON (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) said that notwithstanding some progress in activating bilateral and multilateral negotiations and treaties in the post-cold war era, the wishes of the non-nuclear-weapon States in particular had not yet been reflected in negotiations. Recent disarmament conferences had focused primarily on the quantitative reduction of nuclear arsenals.

In consequence, ongoing disarmament efforts could not adequately address the question of the qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons, and there still remained "an evasive concept" of what approach should be taken towards the existence of nuclear weaponry. He called on the nuclear-weapon States, which were still obsessed with the cold war concept of nuclear deterrence, to implement their commitment to nuclear disarmament assumed under the NPT.

Three years after the entry into operation of the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, he said, there was growing doubt as to whether

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the Register had made a substantive contribution to controlling the arms race and the transfer of conventional weapons. Recent Western expressions of concern over the potentially destabilizing effect of the stockpiling of conventional weapons were simply an attempt to distract the attention of the world from nuclear weapons. Western countries were now fanning competition in arms purchases among Member States by exhibiting sophisticated weapons in the markets through the Register of Conventional Arms.

Because of the 50-year-long division of the Korean peninsula by foreign forces, that peninsula remained in a state of unabated tension. Proposals for national reunification put forward by the leadership of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea fully reflected the reality in the north and the south of Korea. But as long as the "National Security Law" of south Korea

defined the fellow-countryman of the north as "the enemy", the south Korean authorities were unqualified for and unjustified in talking of north-south relations and national reunification.

There were two categories of issues related to the establishment of a new peace arrangement on the Korean peninsula. One was between the north and the south. The other was between his country and the United States. Once a new peace arrangement was established, the legal and institutional mechanism for ensuring peace on the Korean peninsula would be assured.

That would, in turn, help foster the present peace arrangement between the north and south and contribute to stability in the region as a whole. Moreover, the "nuclear issue" was today being resolved efficiently, since the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States had adopted the "Agreed Framework" in Geneva. Both countries had been taking steps to implement that framework. He called on the United Nations to divest the foreign forces in south Korea of the United Nations helmet and dissolve the "United Nations command" in accordance with resolution 3390 B (XXX) of the thirtieth session of the General Assembly.

MULUGETA ETEFFA (Ethiopia) said the indefinite extension of the NPT was a milestone in the area of nuclear disarmament. However, the resumption of nuclear tests had been contrary to most expectations. Utmost restraint from such testing was crucial. The comprehensive test-ban treaty should be materialized without any reservations.

He said the Conference on Disarmament should be empowered with specific mandates to ban fissile materials for nuclear purposes. The establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Africa, and the creation of more nuclear-free zones around the world, would enhance international peace and security. All Member States should join in adopting such treaties. The ratification of the chemical weapons Convention was long overdue.

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Another point of serious concern was the excessive production and illegal transfer of conventional weapons. Transparency in armaments and universal participation in the Register of Conventional Arms would do a great deal for conventional disarmament. The voluntary trust fund for anti-personnel land-mines, insidious weapons which killed or wounded 20,000 people annually -- needed to be strengthened, and their total ban implemented.

I.E. AYEWAH (Nigeria) said the first resolution of the General Assembly, adopted in January 1946, established a commission to make specific proposals for the elimination of national arsenals of atomic weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Almost 50 years later, the decision without a vote for the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was adopted. That decision had already been put to the test by the nuclear tests carried out soon after the NPT was extended. The effectiveness of two other decisions of the NPT Review Conference namely, principles and objectives for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and strengthening the review process of the Treaty -- was totally left to chance, he said.

A true zero-yield test ban by 1996 should be of unlimited duration, he continued. Additional measures of nuclear disarmament, long overdue, were the cut-off in the production of fissionable materials for weapons purposes, and the granting of security assurances to non-nuclear-weapon States in a legally binding instrument. The establishment of an African nuclear-weapon-free zone -- the conclusion of the Treaty of Pelindaba -- was the realization of a long-standing major foreign policy objective. Nigeria was confident that the number of ratifications necessary for its entry into force would be attained in record time. In addition, he emphasized the need for speedy action by all Member States to ensure early entry into force of the chemical weapons Convention.

He urged continued support for future regional seminars in Africa. Also, Nigeria supported a biological weapons convention that, through an appropriate verification regime, would not deny access to developing countries of vital technical knowledge and equipment for biological, medical and other related fields. Conventional arms control should be pursued on both global and regional levels, with emphasis on confidence-building measures.

ANDELFO GARCIA (Colombia) recalled this year's indefinite extension of the NPT by the review conference of States party. He also expressed satisfaction that 33 countries of the hemisphere had now signed the Tlatelolco Treaty setting up a Latin American and Caribbean nuclear-weapon-free zone, of whom 32 had ratified the agreement. He noted progress towards the negotiation of a comprehensive test-ban treaty, and voiced the hope that such an agreement would be crystallized in the course of the coming year.

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Nevertheless, he went on, peace dividends in the area of disarmament and international security were still unevenly distributed. Although the doctrines of nuclear deterrence were no longer valid, nuclear-weapon testing had recently been carried out, and it had been announced that further tests would follow. Such a development constituted a violation of the express commitment of the nuclear Powers at the NPT review conference to proceed with extreme moderation while awaiting the entry into force of a comprehensive test-ban treaty.

Fortunately, the international community had reacted firmly to that resumption of nuclear testing. At the recent Cartagena Conference of the Movement of Non-Aligned Nations, Heads of State and government had firmly rejected all types of nuclear tests -- tests which were carried out without the slightest consideration for their environmental impact or their negative potential for peace, stability and international security.

Another international disarmament issue of serious concern was without a doubt the transfer of conventional weapons, in particular the illicit traffic in such weapons. His country was also gravely concerned at the threat to peace, security, and the health of millions of persons in every latitude posed by the existence of anti-personnel land-mines. What for a few was just another export item was for hundreds of thousands of people -- many of them children -- the tangible cause of injury or death. It was deplorable that no significant progress had been made towards the eradication of those artifacts designed deliberately to maim. He reiterated his country's support for an international moratorium on the production and transfer of such weapons, with the ultimate objective of their total elimination.

RICHARD EKWALL (Sweden) read a statement by the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lena Hjelm-Wallen, concerning the recent declaration of accession to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Rarotonga Treaty) by France, the United States and the United Kingdom. It was very gratifying that those States had now decided to accede in the first half of 1996 to the Rarotonga Treaty. "At the same time, our demand that all nuclear tests should cease immediately stands firm." She also referred to indications by those States that they supported a test-ban treaty which prohibited all nuclear explosions without exception. That was also very welcome and it was assumed that it would be possible to achieve such a treaty during 1996.

Right of Reply

FRANCOIS RICHIER (France), speaking in exercise of the right of reply, said a delegate had expressed words which were unacceptable, did not help and were insignificant.

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