I have asked for the floor to set out the United Kingdom's expectations for the 2001 session of the Conference on Disarmament. My Government believes that it is important that we should take advantage of this general debate to highlight our priorities on our agenda before we get down to substantive work. Ihope that other delegations will do likewise so that in your continuing consultations on our work programme you may be guided by the views of the membership of the Conference.

Before addressing the prospects for 2001, I should like, briefly, to review developments during the year 2000. My Government believes that it is essential not to lose sight of the concrete progress which was made on the arms control and disarmament agenda during last year.

In May, 158 States Parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, meeting at the Sixth Review Conference of that Treaty, adopted, by consensus, a final document. And yet, Mr President, only a few weeks before the Conference began, a number of Cassandras were predicting the failure of the Conference and with it, the demise of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. As Ilook around this chamber, Irecognise a number of delegates who made a significant contribution to that positive outcome, as you yourself also did, Mr President. Ishould like to commend them, and their governments, for not having despaired of the cause.

Throughout the year, here in Geneva, 52 States Parties to the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 continued to refine the text of a Protocol to ensure compliance with the Convention. As a Friend of the Chair of the Ad Hoc Group, Ican testify from personal experience to the intensification of work within the Group which occurred during the latter part of the year. By year end, the General Assembly had adopted, by consensus, a resolution calling for the convening of the Fifth Review Conference of the Convention in December this year. Mr President, the United Kingdom believes that the negotiations on the Protocol can, and should be, completed before that deadline.

The latter half of the year also saw preparations get underway for the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, with the first preparatory meeting taking place in July, and the confirmation, in a resolution by the General Assembly, that the Conference would take place in New York in July this year. Only the week before last, the second preparatory conference saw further concrete progress, with delegations intensifying their consultations on a programme of action, to be adopted by the Conference itself, aimed at resolving the problems caused by the world-wide accumulation and proliferation of small arms and light weapons.
Finally, no survey of the year 2000 could overlook the convening of the Millennium General Assembly in September last year, and its declaration which highlighted the need to work for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, nor the subsequent adoption by the Security Council of a declaration which stressed the critical importance of disarmament. Mr President, it was against this background of solid achievement that the Secretary-General, in his message to the Conference at the outset of its 2001 session, drew attention to the continuing failure of the CD to reach consensus, get down to substantive work and live up to its potential. But, Mr President, the evident failure of the Conference to agree on a work programme, and the perception of stagnation which accompanied that failure, should not obscure the fact that in the course of 2000 the Conference did make significant progress towards the adoption of a work programme. The formal output from the Conference's deliberations - our Annual Report to the General Assembly, CD1627 - does not tell the whole story. The report's slimness, a mere 38 paragraphs, weighing in at a 16 scant pages, should not be allowed to belie the efforts of succeeding Presidencies to narrow the gaps among delegations regarding the content of that work programme, and the priorities to be attached to individual items within that programme.

Those efforts were to culminate in the proposals for a work programme contained in CD 1620, which we have come to refer to as the Amorim proposals, not just as a shorthand, but because of the very real respect in which we hold their author. Subsequent Presidencies, first Bulgaria and now Canada, have continued efforts to further narrow the gaps between positions. As a result, I believe that the Conference on Disarmament is now poised to get down to substantive work, thereby re-asserting its traditional role.

Mr President, of the items on our agenda it is no secret that the priority for my government remains the negotiation of an FMCT Such a treaty will put a worldwide verifiable and legally-binding end to fissile material production for nuclear weapons and other nuclear explosive devices. It is an essential step contributing to nuclear disarmament. Before there can be an effective verifiable ban on all nuclear weapons, there has to be confidence that no new fissile material for nuclear weapons can be produced. The international community reaffirmed the importance of this step several times fast year - in the NPT Review Conference final document, and in the resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly. Both these fora called on the Conference on Disarmament to make an immediate start to FMCT negotiations.

The United Kingdom does not believe that there can be progress on nuclear disarmament without progress on an FMCT. But we do recognise that for some delegations, nuclear disarmament, seen as a whole, remains the highest priority. Let me make it clear, once again, that my delegation is ready to enter into substantive discussions on this topic. Members of the Conference will recall that the Final Document of the NPT Review Conference contained not only an unequivocal undertaking by the Nuclear Weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals, but also called for further work on concrete measures, including on verification. This is a topic which might be addressed by the Ad Hoc

Committee proposed by Amorim. The UK delegation would certainly be willing to bring forward further ideas on this subject.

For other delegations, the question of the prevention of an arms race in space is a very high priority. My delegation does not believe that this topic is in present circumstances ripe for negotiation. But again, Mr President, we are ready to enter into a discussion on this topic. I would urge those delegations, for whom this is a subject of concern, but who have so far been reluctant to agree to a work programme which does not specifically allow for a negotiation, to reflect on the opportunity which they may be missing of having a wide-ranging discussion on this topic within the CD.

I see no need at this stage to re-state the UK position on the other items on our agenda. These are well-known, and 1 hope that if the work programme is adopted, Imay have an opportunity of setting out our position on individual items in greater detail. But what Ido want to do today, Mr President, is to assure you, and the Conference, that the United Kingdom is ready to accept a work programme based on the Amorim proposals. Ihope very much, as I said at the outset, that other delegations will be prepared to come forward with similar statements of intent, with the aim of allowing you to intensify and complete your present round of consultations.

Mr President, the UK delegation is ready to roll up its sleeves and get down to work. I should like to call on other delegations to join us.