Reaching Critical Will

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Unofficial Transcript
Pakistan
21 June 2007

Madame President, my delegation would like to place on record our appreciation for the fact hat you’ve made efforts over the past weeks for a consensus on a possible program of work for the Conference on Disarmament.

As part of these efforts you have presented a draft decision of the Conference for adoption of the Presidential draft decision and the complimentary Presidential statement. In your view in your statement on 14th June, you had said that it could square the circle and clarify the relationship between the two documents. We consider that it could further complicate the process of consultations. While we value your efforts, it is the collective responsibility of the Conference to work towards addressing the fundamental problems and anomalies in the Presidential Draft Decision. Instead of addressing the real substantive issues and rectifying procedural anomalies, the Draft Decision does not help us move forward. Our capital is, however, still looking and evaluating these documents.

As we have repeatedly said, Pakistan is committed to multilateralism and the revitalization of the Conference on Disarmament. We have also made it clear as have some other delegations that the PDD has direct national security implications and in this case direct security implications for us. It has been the norm for the CD to collectively seek solutions to address the fundamental concerns of its constituents. Why is it, we ask, that we are unwilling to do so at this critical moment? It is clear for us that without revisiting the text of L.1, solutions have to be found, and these solutions can be found in L.1. Hence at this point, the question you raised, if there is any delegation that continues to have concerns at this point—our capital is looking at the three documents together and studying its implications in this regard.