PRESS CONFERENCE BY FOREIGN MINISTER OF NEW ZEALAND

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY FOREIGN MINISTER OF NEW ZEALAND

More "political horsepower" was needed behind negotiations to strengthen and enhance the biological weapons Convention, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of New Zealand, Donald McKinnon, told correspondents today at a Headquarters press conference.

[The full name of the treaty cited above is the Convention on the Prohibition for the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction. It entered into force in 1975, and it currently has 141 States parties. While it was the first multilateral treaty to ban an entire class of weapons of mass destruction, it lacks a verification mechanism to ensure compliance.]

Upon the conclusion of a one-day Ministerial meeting at Headquarters today, Mr. McKinnon was joined at the press conference by the Permanent Representative of New Zealand to the United Nations, Michael Powles, and by the Assistant Secretary in the arms control and disarmament branch of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia, Ken Berry. A media packet containing a Ministerial declaration was circulated at the press conference.

Mr. McKinnon said the meeting, attended by a large number of Ministers, had been extraordinary. Its goal had been to underline the critical importance of addressing the threat posed by biological weapons, and to try to conclude the ongoing negotiations in that regard. The declaration reaffirmed the Minister's deep commitment to strengthening the treaty, and underscored the need to reach an early conclusion to the negotiations for a protocol. The declaration was co-sponsored by fifty-seven Ministers; 25 of them had attended today's meeting.

A correspondent asked whether it was possible to use the verification mechanism of the chemical weapons Convention as a "blueprint" for the biological weapons Convention, and why the process was taking so long.

[The full name of the treaty cited above is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons.]

Mr. McKinnon said that the process comprised both humanitarian and commercial issues.

Mr. Berry said that the compliance aspect of the chemical weapons Convention was certainly being studied and "borrowed from", as appropriate. The biological weapons sphere, however, comprised a much wider set of industries and other interests. Biological plants could be set up in very simple ways -- "virtually in the backyard" -- whereas chemical weapons, by and

large, had to be produced by fairly large factories. Thus, different considerations applied. Furthermore, a number of countries were not entirely pleased with the overall result of the chemical weapons verification mechanism and were trying to perfect it.

How was it possible to make the verification mechanism for biological weapons "politically palatable" given the need for a more intrusive verification regime? another correspondent asked.

Mr. Berry said that the issue was "considerably slowing down" the negotiations. Indeed, there was a wide range of views across all regions on that question. One of the most difficult aspects of the negotiations at the moment was determining the type of inspections regime that would be acceptable both to governments and also, importantly, to the industries involved in a large number of countries. The participants were presently negotiating on a range of inspections that would be acceptable to governments, and they were still at the stage of obtaining the views of governments regarding which type of inspections they were prepared to support.

Another correspondent drew attention to the finding of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) monitoring the disposal of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, that it had been virtually impossible to verify a biological weapons system, because, among other things, one could be created in a matter of weeks. He asked how relevant an agreed verification regime could be.

Mr. McKinnon said that the question was at the heart of the issue. It also was the reason for the need to move forward to create a high level of transparency and accountability. Indeed, those agents could be produced in the backyard and were very difficult to detect. On the other hand, their use would present a "mammoth" problem.

Mr. Berry said that while UNSCOM was a separate exercise being conducted under the auspices of the United Nations, it had served as the precursor to the negotiations under way for an improved protocol for the biological weapons Convention. "No one was fooling themselves" that such a protocol was going to be perfect -- able to deter and detect every instance of violation. But, putting in place a more transparent regime would deter a wider range of countries from even attempting to acquire that class of weapons.

He said that an effective inspections regime would provide a much better chance of determining the pervasive nature of a particular biological weapons programme in a particular "cheating country". An inspections regime would also comprise a mechanism capable of destroying a biological weapons programme. Even an imperfect system would be a greater deterrent than no system at all.

New Zealand Press Conference - 3 - 23 September 1998

Asked when a concrete proposal would be presented to the parties, Mr. McKinnon said there was still a long way to go. However, activities such as the Ministerial meeting were designed to trigger the political impetus necessary to conclude the negotiations. It was imperative to get the best verification regime possible, and to "get something on the table" in order to be able to deal with the issue if it arose.

Mr. Berry said that there was a growing feeling among the countries currently negotiating in Geneva that they might approach the "endgame" of the negotiations sometime next year. The Chairman of those negotiations had expressed his hope that by the middle of 1999 he would be able to introduce his own text, which would "kick" the overall negotiations into the final round. Australia was also considering that time frame in the context of deciding when to convene another meeting of Ministers as a prelude to the final stage.

Given the relative ease with which it was possible to produce biological weapons, were greater numbers of inspectors -- compared to those in place for the chemical weapons regime -- being considered? a correspondent asked. Mr. McKinnon said that question was "a really big one". Given the ease with which anyone could carry a small vial containing a biological agent capable of causing enormous damage, a verification regime should discourage a lot of people in a lot of places from even considering such a violation.

Mr. Berry added that another major question concerned the size and expense of a verification body. There was a global awareness that some of those mechanisms had huge budgets and very large staffs. It was important to acknowledge that it was impossible to create a perfect system. Yet, it was essential to set up "enough of a system" to act as "enough of a deterrent". An acceptable system also had to be able to investigate and destroy the weapons concerned once "cheats" were detected.

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