Unofficial Transcript

Thank you very much Sir.  May I yet again welcome you as the first President of the Conference for this year 2008.  You can always count on the unswerving support and cooperation from the delegation of the Russian Federation as you carry out your activities. We also express our gratitude to the delegation of Syria whose activities have helped us to successfully complete work last year. 

President, distinguished colleagues, we are starting work in a period of some responsibility. The international community and this forum face some extremely acute problems which were indeed pointed out in his address by the Secretary General of the United Nations when he addressed the Conference.  Indeed the expansion of zones of conflict and international political life, the deepening in regional crisis, and of the terrorist threat, strengthening risks of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, stagnation in disarmament area, all threaten international stability. They divert resources from constructive purposes and call into question the possibility of achieving sustainable economic growth worldwide. 

What we are faced with is an acute need to agree within the context of open and frank debate on clear universally acceptable and universal rules and principles for interaction in international affairs. And it is that sort of discussion which would allow us to take up consistent realistic approaches for resolution of acute issues facing the world in this period of globalization.  It is this sort of discussion I say that President of Russia, President Putin called for in the international conference held in Munich on the 11th of February last year.

Stepping up work on real disarmament would certainly help to strengthen strategic stability and international security.  Russia holds dear the multilateral approach to resolving a non-proliferation issues, arms control, disarmament and confidence building on the basis of strict implementation of and strengthening of existing agreements and the development of new international legal agreements. 

We believe that we need to make more active use of the potential of a conference to help to strengthen global non proliferation regime of weapons of mass destruction and disarmament.

Distinguished Colleagues, ensuring security in outer space has always been a priority issue for Russia in the CD.  The Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space has so many facets and dimensions to it. The Conference must show that this can be achieved through multilateral agreement taking account of the legitimate interests of all states by filling in the well known gaps in international space law. It’s time to move from words to deeds.

As you know, together with China, Russia co-sponsored and developed a draft treaty to prevent the deployment of weapons in outer space, to prevent the use of force or the threat of force in respect to space based objects.  This draft on the 12th of February this year will be officially submitted for consideration by Foreign Minister Lavrov..

As you know the elements of this treaty were proposed by Russia and China together with a group of co-sponsors back in June 2002 and there has been fruitful discussion on this subject for more than four years now.

We propose that future work on PAROs focus on the idea of developing the treaty I just referred to and we believe that we need to get the involvement of academics and non-governmental organizations with expertise in that field.  We are convinced that all the interesting and substantive ideas and proposals which you have heard voiced before will be called upon this year when conference renews substantive work on the draft treaty. 

Dear Colleagues, as before we are prepared not to object to the start of negotiations on the treaty to prohibit the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons and other nuclear explosive devices under the agenda items cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament and within the agreed program of work  of the Conference of course. 

The development of such a treaty would constitute yet another multilateral measure in the field of nuclear disarmament and non proliferation and thus would be a real contribution to strengthening the NPT regime.  Of course we have no objection either to the holding of substantive discussion within an agreed program of work of the Conference on the issue of nuclear disarmament and prospects of achieving appropriate international agreements on security assurances to those states which do not possess such nuclear weapons.  We are ready to take active part in such debates.

Let me emphasize that for Russia, the draft agenda of the conference is acceptable and we very much hope that it will be soon adopted by consensus. So you as the first president of the session of the CD this year, have the difficult duty, the preparation of the basic concepts and design and practical organization of the work of the session. The main aim we all share is to achieve consensus on the program of work, seeking out compromised solutions which suit all states without exception and renewing focused activities on the part of the conference.

We welcome the decision taken by the P6 this year to coordinate their efforts throughout the session subjecting them and targeting them to this common aim. The proposal you have developed we believe are important, constructive and very promising.  We need as soon as possible to get the subject of disarmament back on the global agenda. We must do our outmost to resolve that task.  And a very important step in that direction would be agreement of a program of work for the conference on the basis of the document L1. 

The Russian delegation will be guided by that approach in its activities and will do all it can to ensure a positive outcome. We wish you, Sir, and your colleagues in the P6 every success in your work.

Thank you.

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