PRESIDENT OF CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT CONTINUES EFFORTS TO REACH AGREEMENT ON PROGRAMME OF WORK

Press Release
DCF/401

PRESIDENT OF CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT CONTINUES EFFORTS TO REACH AGREEMENT ON PROGRAMME OF WORK

Conference Extends Condolences on Tragic Death of Crew of Kursk Submarine

GENEVA, 24 August (UN Information Service) -- The Conference on Disarmament held its weekly plenary this morning, hearing addresses from Japan and the President of the Conference on efforts to reach agreement on the programme of work.

At the beginning of the meeting, the President of the Conference, Ambassador Celso Amorim of Brazil, said the Conference extended its deepest sympathy to the delegation of the Russian Federation on the tragic death of the crew of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk. He hoped his Russian colleagues would convey the condolences of the Conference to the families of the victims, the Government and the people of the Russian Federation.

The Representative of Japan expressed his country s appreciation on all the efforts carried out by Ambassador Amorim to reach agreement on the programme of work, as well as its thanks to his predecessors. Japan believed that he had made remarkable achievements so far and thanked him for being willing to continue his efforts until the last minute. While it might be easy for members of the Conference who were exposed to difficulties on the international scene to understand why the Conference had not reached a solution, outsiders did not understand. This was reason enough not to abandon efforts for an agreement on a programme of work, during this week and the remaining four weeks of the session. All efforts to accomplish nuclear disarmament, whether through negotiating a fissile material cut-off treaty or undertaking a general discussion on nuclear disarmament, were very important.

The President of the Conference said he was moved by the statement of Japan and was encouraged to continue his work on the last leg of his presidency. He had intensified consultations on the promotion of a consensus on a programme of work in the past few days on the basis of the ideas he had presented to the members. He was encouraged by the fact that all delegations considered these ideas as a basis for further intensified consultations. He also took note of the point made

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yesterday by a number of delegations that the need for further intensified consultations at this point was not good enough. He had held informal, open-ended consultations yesterday and was pleased to see wide support from a broad range of nations and regions and the readiness of the delegations to work toward a compromise.

The plenary was suspended and informal, open-ended consultations to discuss the ideas the President had been working on were held.

The next plenary of the Conference on Disarmament will take place at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 31 August.

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