Disarmament

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's message to the opening plenary of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, as delivered by Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, in New York today:

Describing a nuclear-weapon-free world as a “critical global public good”, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the international community to work towards ensuring that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) retained its central role in collective security, as the month-long ninth Review Conference of that accord began at Headquarters today.

Although the global disarmament and non-proliferation regime had faced a “plethora of obstacles” over a number of years, there was no reason to lose faith, the Chair of the Disarmament Commission told members today, stressing that progress was possible if each State demonstrated the requisite political will.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message, delivered by Virginia Gamba, Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, to the “A Century of Weapons of Mass Destruction:  Enough!” event, organized by the municipalities of Ypres and Langemarck-poelkapelle in cooperation with the International Network of Mayors for Peace, held in Ypres, Belgium, today:

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message, as delivered by Virginia Gamba, Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, to the event organized by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of the first use of chemical weapons, in Ypres, Belgium, today:

NEW YORK, 17 April (Office for Disarmament Affairs) — A delegation supporting the work of the Security Council’s 1540 Committee has concluded a four-day visit to Zambia, conducted upon invitation by the Government.

Nuclear disarmament was at a crossroads, with the Korean peninsula a “touch-and-go powder keg” and the oldest and newest nuclear-weapon States in sharp confrontation with each other, the representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea told the Disarmament Commission today, as Member States concluded the general debate of their annual substantive session.

The United Nations Disarmament Commission’s significance as a platform for dialogue and cooperation had only been heightened in light of current rising global tensions and mistrust, the 193-member subsidiary body heard today during its general debate, moving into the second day of its 2015 session.

With armed violence killing more than 740,000 people each year and the prospects of deeper nuclear arms cuts slim, the United Nations disarmament machinery must end its 15 year-long stalemate so it could tackle those twenty-first century security threats, the Disarmament Commission heard today, although it proved unable to agree on a work programme and begin its substantive debate.

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message on the fortieth anniversary of the entry into force of the Biological Weapons Convention, today: