Reaching Critical Will

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Unofficial Transcript
Mexico
26 June 2007

Mr. President I am first sincerely grateful for the very kind words addressed to me and to my work in the Conference. May I now congratulate you on having assumed the Presidency on the Conference on Disarmament- a role from which so many expect so much. I would also like to express my appreciation to your predecessors in particular the Ambassador of Sweden my friend Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier with whom I have lived through the worst and the best times of this Conference. Of course my delegation associates itself with the statement just made by the distinguished Ambassador of Argentina.

Mr. President when I arrived at the beginning of 2002 for the first time in my career in Geneva the Disarmament Conference seemed to be stuck and after a number of years of frustrating lack of work it seemed difficult for it to get back to work again. Now in the five and a half years that have lapsed we have moved from paralysis to a state of great activity thanks to the efforts of successive Presidents. We have initiated dialogue, examined a number of proposals directed at bringing us to a program of work which is a goal that we all claim to share. We have broken that worrying immobility and the dialogue initiated in 2004 allowed us to do away with the misunderstanding- all very true and all very positive. We should not confuse agitation with activity. It’s a fact that despite our proliferation meetings, the Conference has not been able to fulfill its main function which is to negotiate. We should not deceive ourselves Mr. President.

Until a short time ago, I thought that I would leave Geneva without the situation having altered however with the combined efforts of the recent Presidents beginning with the intensive consultations done with such dedication by the Ambassador of South Africa which continued under the talented representatives of Spain, Sri Lanka, and Sweden culminated in the proposal submitted to us weeks and months back. I must confess that at that time, for the first time in a long time, I felt that we could come to adopt a program of work and that we would at last get down to our substantive task.

I don’t want to undervalue the previous attempts such as the previous five Ambassadors of 2003 but we must recognize that the asserted efforts by the Presidents and the work introduced just a year ago has borne fruit that has enabled us to bring our positions closer together. I thought then that we would get out of our stagnancy and by next Sunday that I would leave behind a revitalized Conference- but that was not to be. There are still legitimate concerns on the part of some delegations as to substance and the form of the proposal. I am confident that we are all prepared to demonstrate vertical will, but a further step is necessary. I would once again like to appeal for flexibility. Lets get the machinery going. Issues of substance will be settles as they arise. That would be my parting thought.

I will miss you all. Not often is one able to gather so much talent and experience in one room as there is in this room. I would like to thank you all for the cooperation and the support that you gave to me when I was President in 2004. I would also like to express my appreciation to the Secretariat for always being efficient and prepared as well as the invisible interpreters- also indispensable. I’ll miss what is and what always will be the best club in Geneva and I hope that I’ll be back soon and will be able to work with you in negotiation a multilateral disarmament agreement. From my new position in Mexico, I will follow your work or your agitation very closely.