Representatives of United States, Austria Address Conference on Disarmament

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Press Release

13.02.03

REPRESENTATIVES OF UNITED STATES,
AUSTRIA ADDRESS CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT

US Statement Draws Responses from Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Iraq

Officials of the United States and Austria delivered formal statements this morning before the Conference on Disarmament (CD), with the American representative -- Assistant Secretary for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker -- saying during a lengthy speech that the country "cannot wait much longer" for a United Nations-brokered resolution to the Iraq crisis and that Iraq's scheduled assumption next month of the alphabetically rotating chairmanship of the CD was "unacceptable" to the US "and should be unacceptable to all supporters of the CD".

Mr. Rademaker said that although the United States had been charged of late with a unilateralist foreign policy, it had consistently tried to find a multilateral way to force Iraq to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, was committed to multilateral pressure to force the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, and was committed to multilateral programmes for preventing chemical and biological warfare.

If action was taken by the US against Iraq, Mr. Rademaker said, it would be "in coalition with a large group of like-minded nations. No doubt words will be found to describe those who remain aloof from this coalition, but one term that most assuredly will not be used to describe them is 'multilateralist' ".

His statement drew reactions from the DPRK and Iraq. A DPRK representative said among other things that the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula was due to a hostile US policy towards the DPRK; that if the US changed its attitude the issue would be settled immediately; and that the US was "the main troublemaker which has opened the Pandora's box".

A representative of Iraq said among other things that the Conference should not allow a single country to change the way its rules of procedure appoint Chairmen; that the Government of the United States was using flimsy pretexts to launch a war against Iraq; that Iraq was cooperating fully with United Nations weapons inspectors; that the inspectors had found none of the weapons of mass destruction Iraq was alleged to possess; and that in fact Iraq believed that the Middle East should be free of weapons of mass destruction.

The Austrian representative, Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch, said among other things that poverty, natural and man-made disasters, diseases such as HIV/AIDS, human rights violations, fanaticism and terrorism were all factors in a mutually reinforcing feedback process of inequality, resentment and violence around the world; and the end point of such a process could be the hitherto unimaginable use of weapons of mass destruction. What could be more pressing than addressing these threats comprehensively? he asked. He called for an approach to disarmament matters that was centred on the security of individual human beings.

Conference President Rakesh Sood of India began the meeting by expressing condolences to the bereaved families of the Governments of the United States and Israel following the deaths of the astronauts aboard the space shuttle Columbia.

He concluded the Conference's weekly Thursday morning plenary by noting that his term as Chairman was ending and that negotiations had not yet succeeding in resolving the CD's six-year failure to agree on a programme of work.

The Conference also approved this morning requests by Denmark, Ghana, Lebanon, Nepal, and Saudi Arabia to participate in the work of the CD as observers.

Statements

STEPHEN RADEMAKER, Assistant Secretary for Arms Control of the United States, said it had become fashionable in some circles to charge the US with "unilateralism", but if multilateralism was of the type practiced by the Conference on Disarmament for the past six years, the US could be forgiven for wanting to try something different; in fact if this sort of multilateralism spread to other multilateral institutions, everyone would soon be a unilateralist, or at least something other than a multilateralist. In fact the US was committed to multilateralism and its policies were profoundly multilateralist, Mr. Rademaker said.

Iraq, for example, had defied the Security Council for almost 12 years, and the US had consistently sought through that multilateral forum to halt Iraq's work on weapons of mass destruction. Weapons inspectors had been deployed in Iraq in 1991, had been unable to carry out their mandates, and finally Iraq had ceased all cooperation with them in 1998. It was not until this past November, after increasing pressure initiated by the US, that the UN finally had decided to confront squarely Iraq's defiance of the international community; such Iraqi cooperation as had resulted had come from the unified resolve of the Security Council to confront Iraq and to threaten the use of force if Iraq continued to defy its responsibilities. The US had stayed the multilateral course over the last three moths even as Iraq failed to cooperate wholeheartedly with Security Council Resolution 1441. The US wanted the UN process to work, but for it to do so words had to be backed by action; it wanted a peaceful solution in Iraq, but it and the international community had responsibilities that had to be faced up to if the relevance of the UN in maintaining international security was to be believable. As a volunteer for multilateralism, the US's patience was limited. It was time for the UN to take a stand. The US could not wait much longer to conclude this matter, and when it concluded it, it expected to be in a coalition with a large group of like-minded nations. Those who remained aloof from such a coalition certainly could not be described as "multilateralist".

The US also was committed to multilateral resolution of the problem of nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula, Mr. Rademaker said. It considered the efforts of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to develop nuclear weapons, and its announced intention to withdraw from Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to be a serious challenge to the non-proliferation regime and a threat to regional and international security. The US was working closely with its allies to resolve the problem peacefully.

The commitment of the US to effective multilateralism also could be seen in its efforts to strengthen implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention over the past year, Mr. Rademaker said; in the US-Russian Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions signed on 24 May 2002; and in the hard work the US had put into combatting the biological weapons threat.

The Conference on Disarmament had to become a more effective multilateral forum or it would not survive for much longer, Mr. Rademaker said; consensus in the CD was a good way to function, but it had been corrupted in practice so that a few States could make demands that were unrealistic and unobtainable, insisting on negotiations on subjects that were not ripe for negotiation as a condition for commencing work on subjects where progress might be possible. Negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT), for which there was near-universal support, should begin without linkages to negotiations for which there was not near-universal support. The CD should, in this session, approve a "clean" resolution on FMCT, meaning a resolution unencumbered by linkages to unrelated proposals. It also should look into the prospects of terrorists
obtaining weapons of mass destruction and should redouble efforts to ensure compliance with treaties banning weapons of mass destruction once they entered into force.

On Iraq's possible assumption of the CD Presidency next month, Mr. Rademaker said he wished to be clear: such a thing would be unacceptable to the United States, and should be unacceptable to all supporters of the CD, as it would threaten to discredit the institution even more than the CD's past six years of inactivity had done.

WOLFGANG PETRITSCH (Austria) said that poverty, natural and manmade disasters, diseases such as HIV/AIDS, human rights violations, fanaticism and terrorism were all factors in a mutually reinforcing feedback process of inequality, resentment and violence; the end points of such a process could be the hitherto unimaginable use of weapons of mass destruction. What could be more pressing than addressing these threats comprehensively? The CD needed to avoid becoming an anachronism after having slumbered inactively for five years without any contribution to those pressing matters that it was supposed to address. Austria fully supported all efforts that would help to overcome the CD's current stalemate.

Non-nuclear-weapons States were convinced that the possession, let alone use, of nuclear weapons was unacceptable, because they were counterproductive to the world's long-term security and stability, Mr. Petritsch said. Yet there was an opposing view among some States that long-term retention of nuclear weapons was a valid option adding to their security and international prestige. That did not appear to be true. Recent examples had clearly demonstrated that acquiring nuclear weapons did not improve the strategic security situation, in particular in States where developmental needs and other human security related needs were more pressing than ever. Besides starting immediately on negotiations on fissile material, the international community must redouble its efforts towards the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear weapons.

Austria was a strong supporter of the efforts to adopt a verification protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) which had come to an abrupt end in the summer of 2001, Mr. Petritsch said. It sincerely hoped that the follow-up mechanism agreed upon at last November's Review Conference would yield results and reinforce the BTWC.

Last week, States parties, international organizations and civil society had come together to work towards implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty, Mr. Petritsch said, and Austria (together with Peru) had had the honour of chairing the General Status Standing Committees. This treaty put the security and safety of the human individual at the centre of concern, which was the best way for disarmament efforts to proceed. Austria expected that the negotiations about to begin on a prospective "Protocol V" to the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention to yield good results, and thought the same human-centred approach should guide work in the area of small arms and light weapons (SALW). Austria would continue to do its utmost to strengthen multilateral approaches to disarmament, arms-control and non-proliferation objectives and was grateful for the trust shown by subscribing States of the Hague Code of Conduct against ballistic missile proliferation in appointing Austria as the immediate central contact for the Code. Austria encouraged all to sign the Code.

A representative of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said the representative of the United States had kindly asked for a response. He did not understand why the US seemed to have stressed multilateralism many times, in an aggressive way. But who was pursuing unilateralism? Where was the language of this unilateralism coming from? The US was only giving lip service in its talk of multilateralism; it was a language game. The US representative had said the DPRK was violating its international obligations and doing many bad things to the international community. But as the DPRK had said earlier, the US had pursued a hostile policy against the DPRK for more than half a century; and the US President had recently labelled the sovereign State of the DPRK as part of an "axis of evil". The US also had deliberately violated the framework agreement of 1994. And the US had instigated the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to adopt resolutions against the DPRK.

As had been stated many times, the nuclear programme of the DPRK was aimed at peaceful purposes, mainly for electricity generation. Should the US drop its hostile policy and complete the non-aggression pact on equal footing with the DPRK, the DPRK would cooperate with the inspections being sought. But the current inspection proposals were unfair, unilateral and distorted.

The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula was due to the hostile US policy towards the DPRK. If the US changed its attitude right now, the issue would be settled immediately, and all the problems would disappear simultaneously. That was why the DPRK called the problem a bilateral one between the US and the DPRK --it was not multilateral or international. The US was a jealous superpower that wanted to control everything. The US was the main troublemaker which had opened the Pandora's box.

A representative of Iraq said the Presidency of the CD was a periodical procedure that was followed in accordance with the CD's rules of procedure, and was one of the advantages of the operation of this multi-lateral body. Iraq did not think one country should enforce its views on the rest of the Conference on this matter. The Government of the US had a political stance against Iraq and was using flimsy pretexts to launch a war against Iraq; obviously the US was not pleased that Iraq could assume the Presidency of the Conference.

But letting the US use unilateral pressure to affect the rules of this Conference would set a very bad precedent. The US had levied many charges against Iraq in this morning's statement. But two international agencies were carrying out inspections in Iraq with full Iraqi cooperation, trying to find the alleged weapons of mass
destruction. These bodies had made no allegations that they had found such weapons. The US was charging Iraq with obstruction of these inspections so that it could launch aggression against Iraq. Iraq reaffirmed that it implemented and honoured its obligations under Security Council resolutions. It believed that the Middle East
should be free of weapons of mass destruction. It refuted the US's allegations; it reiterated that it had no weapons of mass destruction. The US filed these charges, yet it was the only country to use such weapons. Also it had used depleted-uranium weapons against Iraqi citizens.

RAKEESH SOOD, Ambassador of India and Chairman of the Conference, in a statement at the conclusion of his term as Chairman, said the group remained unsuccessful in consultations on adoption of a programme of work, although negotiations had continued, especially on the basis of the proposal of the "Five Ambassadors". The Five were continuing their efforts. Another proposal, to put aside the three "difficult" subjects that had been linked together to concentrate on less contentious matters, also had not drawn universal agreement. That had brought everyone back to square one -- the issue of negotiating mandates. But experience had shown that negotiating mandates did not necessarily lead to successful negotiations, and that non-negotiating mandates had, at times, led to successful negotiations. Therefore he urged that the Conference take a serious look at the dilemma that had prevented it from doing any substantive work for the last six years.