Unofficial Transcript
United Kingdom
28 June 2007

Thank you, Mr. President.  I should like to flag up to colleagues a major speech which my Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett made on 25 June in Washington to the Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference.  Her overriding message was a clear call for a reinvigoration and a commitment for a world free from nuclear weapons.  The speech is posted on our delegation’s website which for those of you who would like to note it down is www.fco.gov.uk  My point in speaking today is as you all know as of yesterday the UK has a new Prime Minister who is currently drawing up a new Cabinet of Ministers.  And some people are speculating that Mrs. Beckett’s speech represents new policy.  And others are already asking will it alter if the UK has a new Foreign Secretary? 

Mr. President, I should like to reaffirm that the ideas that were expressed in Mrs. Beckett’s speech are a logical progression of what the UK has been saying and practicing and saying in different arms control bodies including the Conference on Disarmament, UN General Assembly 1st Committee and the Non-Proliferation Prep-Com.  These ideas do not represent a new UK policy but they are a continuation and a deepening of our overall approach which acknowledges that there must be parallel purpose on both nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. And the key policies as expressed in that speech are the following: A recognition that the bargain between the haves and have-nots requires Nuclear Weapon States to do more on nuclear disarmament to get more on the non-proliferation front.  A recognition also of the pressure on the NPT regime.  Secondly, a call for the ratification of CTBT by those who have yet to do so.  A call for the commencement on negotiations on an FMCT.  And a call for the cut in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals upon the expiration of treaties.  Thirdly, a UK commitment to engage in multilateral negotiations on the elimination of nuclear weapons once U.S. and Russia have reduced their arsenals considerably.  And to engage in the meantime in transparency confidence building measures with any other Nuclear Weapon States.  And finally, Mrs. Beckett made an announcement that the UK will, as a nuclear disarmament laboratory, participate in a new project by the International Institute of Strategic Studies on the practical steps required for the elimination of nuclear weapons and would also undertake further detailed work on the UK’s nuclear weapons establishment in what we call the nuts and bolts of nuclear disarmament.

I look forward to finding out who the new Foreign Secretary will be and will share any background information as it comes. 

Thank you Mr. President