Transcribed Statement of Ambassador Juan Enrique Vega President of the CD 8/3/01

Members of the CD, ladies and gentlemen, at the outset of my presidency of the Conference on Disarmament three long weeks ago because its really impressive that three weeks can be over. And with such intensive days I express the intention to channel our work from the standpoint of service, service to all the members of the Conference and also to observer states. I referred to our point in the group of 21 towards principles upheld by Chile and our convictions in this forum.

However, I did clarify that we would talk less about such convictions to stress within the general climate of service, to stress the idea of listening to the Conference and trying to configure our work under the circumstances we're experiencing today. As I've had the opportunity to inform groups and various delegations which sought to consult in traditional formats as well as in other novel formats the conditions are not yet right to agree a program of work for the Conference by consensus.

Our consultations have been held on the basis of the mandate handed down to us by the Conference itself to continue to explore avenues on the basis of the so-called Amorim proposal contained in document CD-1624. A central motivation of our exercise has been to preserve the political status of this proposal, which we do not see as just one more document. But rather as a capital, an achievement, a resolve of the process which is at least two years old. The Amorim proposal is the result of the efforts of various presidents who all have attempted and tested different formulae for coming closer, bringing closer divergent positions of the Conference including Ambassadors Dembri and Lint. And it is as such that this is a capital inherited, which we must take care of for the good of the Conference itself. Most of you have heard my analytical description of the current situation. An analytical description where there are no conditions to adopt the Amorim proposal as is. There's no agreement to introduce amendments in the operative part of the Amorim proposal, which would be the second scenario. Nor has there been progress on opening up the Presidential Declaration to make use of the very much counted constructive ambiguity.

In other words the three scenarios within which this president has moved. As regards some of them positions have hardened and we have regressed. We have come back and in others no there's been progress or signals have not been sent out which are sufficiently ambiguous or open to be able to continue working with a certain amount of hope. Now this does not mean that there are no outcomes, no no ways out. Obviously what is at stake here and I said this at several of the consultations that I've had with you, what is at stake are different concepts on the handling of time given the external conditions, given what Ambassador Westdal called the dynamic context.

There are delegations who think that the Conference may wait, that it can wait and that it must wait for development to take place outside it. There are delegations who are impatient. They feel uneasy about the situation of the Conference and there are others who have already declared it dead. They come to the consultations with a certain degree of boredom because they repeat a ritual, which is almost senseless. That's what they feel. I don't share any of these positions but this is the sensation I feel after three weeks where I have related, liased with almost all the members of this Conference. Now our consultations, which have been consisting of listening, hearing, enables us to see that within the Conference there is a sizeable school of thought, which wants a program over and above all currently, which tries to see what the various ways are whereby we can contribute to this program. And hence they feel that there are different ways to rebuild this program.

We all agree that the CD is first of all a negotiating forum. This is a point which has been unanimously repeated by all delegations. We share this feeling this idea. To many of the delegations however the fact that the Conference is a negotiating body does not entail that within it you cannot have complementary actions that contribute to these negotiations. We have been very careful in saying that a complementary or an additional effort to the main effort is not a substitute for the main effort and thereby we have been very careful in that the Conference cannot discuss Plan Bs, alternative plans to its main duty which is to have a program of work. However, I think that we have come to the time when we have to know how we can continue to give impetus to the work, to get a program on the basis of our capital which is the Amorim proposal.