PRESS BRIEFING ON TERRORISM SYMPOSIUM BY UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR DISARMAMENT AFFAIRS

PRESS BRIEFING ON TERRORISM SYMPOSIUM BY UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL

FOR DISARMAMENT AFFAIRS

Jayantha Dhanapala, Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, gave correspondents a brief introduction to the Symposium on Terrorism and Disarmament, to be hosted by the Department for Disarmament Affairs this afternoon at United Nations Headquarters.

He explained to correspondents at the briefing that the Symposium would take place in the context of the actions the United Nations had taken in the wake of the attacks of 11 September.  Those actions included the passing of resolutions on terrorism by the General Assembly (A/56/1) and the Security Council, which adopted two (S/RES/1368 and S/RES/1373), and the release of an important statement on terrorism by the Secretary-General on 1 October.  In that statement, the Secretary-General had stressed the importance of preventing any future acts of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction.  At the opening session of the General Assembly’s First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), Mr. Dhanapala had also pointed to the importance of prevention, citing the need for the disarmament community to take stock of the prevailing situation and to strengthen existing norms to avoid recurrence of the events of 11 September.

Mr. Dhanapala had been in touch with the Directors General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).  He said those organizations had themselves been very active since 11 September.  The General Council of the IAEA had adopted a resolution on the protection of nuclear material, and empowered their Director to make recommendations to the Board of Governors.  For its part, the OPCW’s Director General was discussing proposals as to how chemical weapons terrorism could be prevented.

At this afternoon’s symposium, he continued, six outside experts would be delivering talks on different aspects of disarmament.  Professor Paul Wilkinson from the University of Saint Andrew’s Centre for the Study of Political Violence and Terrorism would be speaking on the terrorist threat to peace and security, describing different categories of terrorist groups, explaining what had happened, and offering proposals about what could be done to combat terrorism.  Dr. Anita Nilsson from the IAEA would be speaking on the threat of nuclear terrorism, referring specifically to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials.  She had been the head of the IAEA’s Office of Physical Protection and Material Security, and was well-placed to explain how the Convention functions. From the OPCW, Mikhail Berdennikov would speak in detail on the subject of chemical weapons and the dangers of terrorism. 

Three other experts were scheduled to speak, he said. Ambassador Tibor Toth of Hungary, who was to be the President of the Fifth Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), would be speaking on bioterrorism and the Convention.  A talk on the link between terrorism and the illicit flow of small arms and light weapons was to be given by Rohan Gunaratna from the University of Saint Andrew’s.  The issue of financing of weapons acquisitions by terrorists were to be addressed in a paper by V.P. Salov, from the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Department for Disarmament Affairs intended to publish the proceedings of the Symposium in the form of Occasional Papers, said the Under-Secretary-General.

A corespondent wanted to know how much of a threat miniature nuclear weapons such as “suitcase bombs” posed.   Mr. Dhanapala replied that the smallest bomb he knew of weighed 51 pounds, and that the miniaturization of nuclear weapons was indeed possible.  The extent to which those weapons were available to terrorists was an open question.  The knowledge of how to assemble such a device and the capacity to deliver such a bomb were other questions that needed to be raised.  He suggested that the correspondent ask one of the experts at the Symposium.

Mr Dhanapala was asked if the papers delivered at the Symposium would be available to the public.  The Under-Secretary-General explained that the experts themselves would be available for interviews, and that copies of the papers delivered at the Symposium would be available at the Department for Disarmament Affairs. 

A correspondent asked Mr. Dhanapala where his concerns lay regarding the use of anthrax and other weapons by terrorists, and what was the United Nations' view on where the major threat was.  Mr. Dhanapala said that his main concerns would be to strengthen the existing disarmament norms and bolster the legal barriers against both weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons.  That would restrict the access of terrorist and sub-State groups to those sorts of weapons, he said.  Blocking the loopholes that existed in the disarmament regime would be another important step.  The BWC, for example, had no verification component.  An ad hoc group had not been able to agree on a verification protocol in seven years of work.  The upcoming Review Conference on the BWC might be an opportunity for States to discuss the issue further.

Asked for his reaction to reports that the United States might change its position on the BWC, Mr. Dhanapala responded that he did know a delegation from the State Department was visiting Europe this week to discuss the proposals they planned to make at the Review Conference.  He was unable to comment on the matter any further, though.  

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