Distinguished Mr. Westdal,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The era of globalization is bursting into our life making us change its traditional ways and confronting us with increasingly complicated tasks. The international community will only be able to resolve them if it acts jointly and rationally, using the achievements of contemporary science and technology and the aggregate economic and intellectual potential for the benefit of all the States of the globe.

Not a single State, even the most powerful one in economic and militarily terms, can find responses to new challenges that would really threaten international security in the 2 1 st century. All attempts to create isolated islets of well-being and stability in today's world are illusory and, in our view, doomed to failure.

This is strikingly testified by the area of disarmament where all pros and cons of the globalization era are most conspicuous. Indeed, it is the threat of a global nuclear confrontation which has dramatically changed our perception of those foundations upon which every State should build its security and paved the way to painstaking disarmament negotiations.

Since the inception of this process multilateral diplomacy and, first and foremost, the United Nations has played an active and meaningful role in it. That is why it is quite legitimate that even today in our search for reliable and concerted responses to presentday challenges we are turning to time-tested institutions and mechanisms. In this respect, the Conference on Disarmament and "the Geneva process", in a broader sense, offer us unique experience. It is in this Conference that multilateral agreements prohibiting entire classes of weapons of mass destruction have been elaborated. It is in Geneva that the most important bilateral agreements have been reached which enabled Russia and the United States to initiate drastic reductions in strategic offensive arms.

We are strongly convinced that even today the capacities of the Conference on Disarmament are far from being exhausted. Rather, the era of globalization urgently calls for an integrated and multilateral approach to disarmament problems. This means that search for their solution cannot and should not be the privilege of a narrow circle of the nuclear powers or States possessing the largest military capabilities. An arms race in contemporary world, wherever it emerges, is bound to affect the interests of all States and influences the general international environment.

Under these conditions, the process of disarmament, like global security itself, is becoming global and indivisible in nature. This fact has been, once more, visibly demonstrated by the outcome of the Millennium Summit and Assembly held within the framework of the United Nations. For the disarmament process to develop in a normal manner, each State should be fully confident that its security is closely linked to that of the whole international community and is ensured by political means and international legal instruments. In other words, collective provision of strategic stability in the world is a necessary prerequisite for a stable and progressive disarmament process. And this should take place in the broadest sense of the word, that is in political, military, economic, humanitarian, ecological and other dimensions. This is the only way in which a secure and democratic model of the world order can be created that meets the requirements of today's era.

In short, time itself raises the question of intensifying the work of our Conference in order to conduct an in-depth exploration of military, political and disarmament aspects of strategic stability. However, the future of any forum and effectiveness of decisions it takes depend on the will of the member States and their capacity to seek and find solutions.

The Russian Federation, on its part, is not only ready for this but is also taking specific steps aimed at strengthening global and regional security in all its aspects.

In 2000, President Putin approved new versions of our country's Concept of National Security and Foreign Policy, which emphasize that the Russian Federation will strictly observe its obligations under the existing treaties and agreements in the area of arms limitations and reductions. We will continue to take an active part in the elaboration and conclusion of appropriate new agreements ensuring comprehensive strategic stability.

In the first place, this concerns further measures to reduce the nuclear danger. Being fully aware of its share of responsibility in the area, Russia ratified in the spring of 2000 the START-II Treaty, which provides for more than two-fold reductions in Russian and US strategic arsenals.

Russia is ready to start immediately negotiations with the United States on the development of a START-III Treaty. The Russian side proposes that deeper drastic reductions of strategic warheads should be undertaken in the new treaty than agreed before, i.e. down to 1,500 units instead of 2,000-2,500.

But neither, President V.V.Putin, stated was this the limit. We are ready subsequently to consider even lower levels. Agreement on such additional cuts would meet the aspirations of the peoples of the world. It would be in line with the decisions of the last year's Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Another concrete example is the ratification by the Russian Federation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. We hope that the other States on which depends its entry into force will follow suit, thus enabling this major document to add up to the agreements that are already in force.

Such is the extent of specific measures in the area of nuclear disarmament, which can be really - and I stress it, really - implemented as soon as in the nearest future and thereby give a powerful impetus to the whole disarmament process in the world and expand its scope. No doubt, this process should be pursued on the basis the principle of equal security. It is important that the other nuclear powers be involved in it on a multilateral basis.

One more point of principle. Such large-scale advances can only be achieved in the conditions of maintaining and strengthening the 1972 ABM Treaty, which even now remains to be one of the pillars of today's architecture in the area of arms control and disarmament.

I do not believe that there is any need to re-iterate the arguments of the Russian side in favor of this underlying instrument in terms of strategic stability. This approach, as shows the outcome of the vote during the recent sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations on the resolution supporting the 1972 ABM Treaty, is shared by the overwhelming number of States.

We think it necessary that an active and meaningful dialogue on this topic be resumed with the new US administration as soon as possible. In this respect, we proceed from the simple truth which was once stated by Seneca: "Some medicines are more dangerous than diseases themselves". As an alternative to a national missile defense system we propose a whole package of constructive, political and diplomatic measures. Their aim is to dispel concerns - not only by the United States, - about the so-called "new missile threats" while preserving the ABM Treaty. These steps include: creation of a Moscow-based Missile Launch Data Exchange Center established by Russia and the United States, the initiative on the Global Control System for NonProliferation of Missiles and Missile Technology. And finally, we suggest a broad international cooperation, open to all States, in the area of theatre missile defense which was initiated through a number of arrangements reached by Moscow and Washington in 1997-2000.

Russia considers the creation of nu lear-weapon- free zones in different regions of the world and non-deployment of nuclear weapons beyond national territories as a substantial contribution to strengthening strategic stability. In this connection, 1 would recall that all the nuclear weapons left outside Russia after the disintegration of the USSR were withdrawn to the Russian national territory. The cause of the non-proliferation will only benefit if all nuclear weapons are concentrated on the territories of the States to which they belong.

Russia also proposes to develop and implement under the auspices of the IAEA an international project which allows to exclude using main weapongrade materials in the sector of peaceful energy, namely enriched uranium and pure plutonium.

It is not by accident that I pay so much attention to the issues of strengthening strategic stability, since the prospects of finding solutions to problems on the agenda of our Conference largely depend on them.

Mr. President,

Russia is ready to work actively with the other member States of the Conference in order to follow the path of nuclear disarmament in accordance with its obligations assumed under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Our primary consideration in this respect is that our joint steps be realistic, balanced and specific. Given all this, we support the idea of establishing within the Conference on Disarmament a subsidiary body entrusted with an exploratory mandate for broad discussions on the problem area of nuclear disarmament.

It is time now to re-establish in the Conference the Ad Hoc Committee to elaborate a treaty on the prohibition of the production of fissile materials for weapon purposes. All the more so, that its mandate was agreed upon in 1995.

In terms of strengthening the international non-proliferation regime it would be crucial that the work be continued at the Conference on the agreement on finegative" security assurances to non-nuclear-weapon States.

A matter of special concern to many States represented at the Conference is now the prospect of an arms race in outer space. That was why we, like the overwhelming majority of other States, supported during the last session of the General Assembly of the United Nations the earliest start of substantive negotiations on outer space topic at our forum in Geneva.

The same path follows the proposal by the President of Russia V.V.Putin to convene this spring, in 2001, in Moscow, under the auspices of the United Nations, an international conference on the prevention of an arms race in outer space. It is high time that a reliable international legal "safety-net" be created in this respect. Efforts and resources of our space agencies should be aimed at peaceful, including commercial, cooperation.

Having re-solved, jointly, these issues of principle, we shall create favorable conditions for progress in other important disarmament areas as well, such as strengthening various nonproliferation and export control regimes, prevention of uncontrolled spread of small arms and light weapons and movement towards the prohibition of inhumane types of mines.

In conclusion, I should like to stress once more that the Russian Federation highly appreciates the role played by the Conference on Disarmament in building new stable and safe world order and will persistently strive to enhance its international authority and effectiveness.

Thank you for your attention.