CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT: OPENING REMARKS
BY THE CD. PRESIDENT, AMBASSADOR WESTDAL,
AT THE FIRST 2001 PLENARY SESSION

1 want now to tell you about my consultations to date, reviewing some of the issues at stake from the vantage of the President; to seek your mandate to continue this work, to complete the current circle of talks and seek progress beyond; and to urge all delegations meanwhile to take advantage of our early plenaries to make worthy use of the political capacity of the Conference, its power to influence the perceptions and policies of member states.

As mandated and instructed, I've been active. In New York, during the First Committee session, and after in Washington, London, Beijing, Paris, Moscow and here in Geneva, I've consulted intensively.

1 have naturally found great frustration among delegations that the Conference has not been used to much purpose at all for years now. They feel that they have real value to add, that there is vital non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament progress available here and that they are being prevented from achieving it. They find this waste of opportunity disheartening (not to speak of how they feel about the waste of their time and professional energies).

1 have also found confirmation of the value invested in CD/ 1624, the work program proposed by Ambassador Amorim last August. The result of years of hard work and refinement aimed to reflect and accommodate the diverse views and interests of all members, the program's virtues are considerable. It would provide scope for profound exploration, discussion and negotiation and offer widespread benefits and satisfactions. It would draw attention to the CD, enhance its value as a platform and negotiating forum and give us fresh means of credibility and some currency convertible in public and political impact. It would give the media some content to cover, a story worth reporting. And it would be timely, now with a whole session ahead and the issues involved so prominent in international affairs.

All this deep respect for the proposal notwithstanding, 1 must add that I have also confirmed that several parties have reservations and problems with the proposal and are not yet prepared to join a consensus in its favour. You know much about these problems. They have been well described here by the parties who perceive and define them. I will not rehearse them anew.

1 do though want to emphasize that in none of my consultations have 1 found closed minds. I've heard references to "bottom lines," of course, and everyone knows that every word of both the text and the accompanying statement before us has been painstakingly chosen to aim for consensus, so texts are relatively static, but minds are nowhere closed to fresh textual analyses. Equally or more important, minds are not at all closed to the currently highly dynamic context in which our search for consensus proceeds, a context of complex, changing strategic and tactical considerations for all parties.

Of course, more than the mere fate of CD/ 1 -6-2-4 is perceived to be at stake. Given widespread concern about tendencies to unilateralism or quite selective multi-polarity, the future course of multilateral NACD generally and of this institution in particular are seen as well to hang in the balance.

The general view bears repeating that this Conference is vitally important to our shared hopes for stricter arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament. Its rationale - that everyone's fate is everyone's business - is a rock. Its mandate to negotiate is unique and necessary. And it is critically inclusive. The four states in the world which have not joined the NPT are all here as equal stakeholders. The major powers are all here, ready - from time to time - to talk, to explore and to negotiate. Given widespread concerns about global strategic stability and fear of new arms races, it is surely a striking anomaly that the means of engagement available here are currently almost entirely unused.

I seek and will assume your mandate to try hard to do something about that, to put this place back to work. As President, 1 am highly conscious of our responsibility for the quality of the multilateral options available to states seeking common security, the quality and capacity of the multilateral track. There is little point in blaming tools for their lack of use. We do not have the power here to make the decisions required to have us proceed with a program of work. But it is our direct responsibility here to create and keep on offer the best possible multilateral option we can devise to achieve common non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament goals. My judgement, widely shared, is that CD/ 1624 - or something very close to it - remains the best option available and further, that it would indeed represent a worthy fulfilment of our fundamental responsibility in this Conference.

We are all of us frustrated who've been here much time, naturally, but as we carry on, 1 think we would be wise to modulate and channel our impatience creatively. We have little appetite, for waiting, idled, and none at all for impassivity. But realistic perspective is critical and patience a necessary virtue, even for those whose aims here have long been frustrated.

This is after all a brand new day - if not indeed still a brand new millennium. This year's session is not yet an hour old. Critical new players were sworn in three days ago. In these real circumstances, impatience that we do not have an entirely agreed work program would surely be in key dimensions misguided. Whatever we make of the pace of the past, however hard we wring our hands, we'll gain no choice but to start from where we are now.

With your support, 1 will complete the current circle of talks and sustain the search for consensus. I will of course keep you informed of my perceptions and my efforts - and of any progress they may yield.

I urge all delegations meanwhile to put our Conference to immediate good use, the lack of an agreed work program notwithstanding. 1 must note in this context that the speakers lists for our plenaries are very short and worry what signal that sends. 1 urge all to use these plenaries to share assessments of CD/ 1624 and the way forward in current global security circumstances. And beyond, I urge its use to seek common ground, to serve interests we all share - weapon and nonweapon state alike, NPT party and non-party together, states from all the groups and regions, all as one, eye to eye here, gathered to try to serve our security in this Conference with community, trust and verified multilateral action - so that we might all feel much less inclined to try to serve it elsewhere with arms.

More figuratively still, I urge you to use this unique forum to express the health in us, the dignity and the will, that we might here gain an upper hand against the grave dangers which confront us, that we might here together deepen our perceptions of common, global, multilateral security interests and create and use fresh means to sustain, protect and promote them.

This rhetoric would be made real very well in a decision by consensus to adopt a program of work as ambitious as CD/ 1 624's, with its coverage of fissile material for weapons, security assurances, the prevention of an arms race in outer space and nuclear disarmament, along with transparency, anti-personnel mines and CD membership, agenda and functioning. It is a mouthful worth speaking. All of it would be work very highly worth doing,

When he addressed our Conference two years ago, President flang Zemin offered a vision we should all strive to falfill. He quoted Tang dynasty poet Li Bai: "A time will come to ride the wind, cleave the waves, 1 will set my cloud-white sail and cross the sea which raves."

The sea raves. 1 think the time has come to set our cloud-white sail, to ride and to cleave... to plough on dauntless and plane when we can. and to negotiate. Given widespread concerns about global strategic stability and fear of new arms races, it is surely a striking anomaly that the means of engagement available here are currently almost entirely unused.

I seek and will assume your mandate to try hard to do something about that, to put this place back to work. As President, 1 am highly conscious of our responsibility for the quality of the multilateral options available to states seeking common security, the quality and capacity of the multilateral track. There is little point in blaming tools for their lack of use. We do not have the power here to make the decisions required to have us proceed with a program of work. But it is our direct responsibility here to create and keep on offer the best possible multilateral option we can devise to achieve common non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament goals. My judgement, widely shared, is that CD/ 1624 - or something very close to it - remains the best option available and further, that it would indeed represent a worthy fulfilment of our fundamental responsibility in this Conference.

We are all of us frustrated who've been here much time, naturally, but as we carry on, 1 think we would be wise to modulate and channel our impatience creatively. We have little appetite, for waiting, idled, and none at all for impassivity. But realistic perspective is critical and patience a necessary virtue, even for those whose aims here have long been frustrated.

This is after all a brand new day - if not indeed still a brand new millennium. This year's session is not yet an hour old. Critical new players were sworn in three days ago. In these real circumstances, impatience that we do not have an entirely agreed work program would surely be in key dimensions misguided. Whatever we make of the pace of the past, however hard we wring our hands, we'll gain no choice but to start from where we are now.

With your support I will complete the current circle of talks and sustain the search for consensus. I will of course keep you informed of my perceptions and my efforts - and of any progress they may yield.

I urge all delegations meanwhile to put our Conference to immediate good use, the lack of an agreed work program notwithstanding. I must note in this context that the speakers lists for our plenaries are very short and worry what signal that sends. I urge all to use these plenaries to share assessments of CD/ 1624 and the way forward in current global security circumstances. And beyond, I urge its use to seek common ground, to serve interests we all share - weapon and nonweapon state alike, NPT party and non-party together, states from all the groups and regions, all as one, eye to eye here, gathered to try to serve our security in this Conference with community, trust and verified multilateral action - so that we might all feel much less inclined to try to serve it elsewhere with arms.

More figuratively still, I urge you to use this unique forum to express the health in us, the dignity and the will, that we might here gain an upper hand against the grave dangers which confront us, that we might here together deepen our perceptions of common, global, multilateral security interests and create and use fresh means to sustain, protect and promote them.

This rhetoric would be made real very well in a decision by consensus to adopt a program of work as ambitious as CD/ 1 624's, with its coverage of fissile material for weapons, security assurances, the prevention of an arms race in outer space and nuclear disarmament, along with transparency, anti-personnel mines and CD membership, agenda and functioning. It is a mouthful worth speaking. All of it would be work very highly worth doing.

When he addressed our Conference two years ago, President flang Zemin offered a vision we should all strive to fulfill. He quoted Tang dynasty poet Li Bai: "A time will come to ride the wind, cleave the waves, I will set my cloud-white sail and cross the sea which raves."

The sea raves. I think the time has come to set our cloud-white sail, to ride and to cleave... to plough on dauntless and plane when we can.