Fifty-eighth General Assembly

First Committee

1^st Meeting (AM)

DISARMAMENT COMMITTEE ELECTS OFFICERS, ADOPTS WORK PROGRAMME

The First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) this morning, in an organizational meeting, elected officers and adopted its programme of work and agenda for the fifty-eighth session.

The work programme is divided into three phases. The first, from 6 October to 17 October, will be a general debate on all disarmament and international security agenda items.  Those include, among others, measures to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, reducing nuclear danger, and the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones in the Middle East and Central Asia.

The second phase, to be held from 20 to 24 October, will be a thematic discussion on all items, as well as the introduction and consideration of all draft resolutions and decisions.  The final phase, from 27 October to 7 November, involves action on the texts.

Committee Chairperson Jarmo Sareva (Finland) presided over the election of officers.  Elected as vice-chairpersons were Anouar Ben Youssef (Tunisia), Suriya Chindawongse (Thailand), and Ionut Suseanu (Romania).  Miguel Carbo (Ecuador) was elected Rapporteur.

Before adoption of the agenda (document A/C.1/58/1), the representative of Iran requested clarification on the inclusion of a bracketed paragraph under item 73, general and complete disarmament, which noted the General Assembly’s decision that some portions of the annual report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (document A/58/312) would be drawn to the attention of the First Committee. 

He said Member States had not been consulted about the inclusion of the paragraph, which had not appeared in previous Committee reports, and his main concern was related to transparency.  He also emphasized that the issue was substantive, not merely procedural.

Following comments by other delegations, the Committee Chairman responded that it was not for the Committee to re-adopt what had already been adopted by the General Assembly.  However, he recognized that the issue was a matter of substantive importance to several delegations.  Given the complexity of the issues raised, he would refer the matter to the Office of Legal Affairs.

Comments in the discussion were made by the representatives of Pakistan, Zambia, Egypt, Sierra Leone and Romania.

At the opening of the meeting, delegates stood in silence for one minute, in memory of those who lost their lives or were injured in the recent bombing of the United Nations offices in Baghdad.

The Committee will begin its general debate at 10 a.m. Monday, 6 October.