Reaching Critical Will

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Statement by Mr. James C. O'Shea, Deputy Permanent Representative of Ireland to the Conference on Disarmament 19th August 2008

Unofficial Transcript

Thank you, Mr. President.

First of all, permit me to congratulate you on your assumption of the post of President of the Conference on Disarmament, and to bid you welcome to Geneva. I can assure you of the full cooperation of my delegation in the discharge of your duties.

I would also like to express the gratitude of my delegation to your distinguished predecessor, Ambassador Rocca, Permanent Representative of the United States of America, and the other members of this year’s P6, for their assiduous efforts to get the Conference on Disarmament back to work.

I cannot but express sorrow at the imminent departure from Geneva of the Permanent Representatives of France and of Finland, Ambassador Dobelle and Ambassador Kahiluoto, both of whom have greatly enriched our discussions during the time of their presence here.

I would like to associate my delegation with the eloquent remarks of the distinguished Permanent Representative of New Zealand, which express also the position of my delegation on the question of getting the Conference on Disarmament back to work. As he said, the position of New Zealand, and the same could be said for Ireland, is very close to that of Pakistan on the various questions of substance relating to the content of a treaty on fissile material.

I would like to refer briefly to the statement of the distinguished Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation, Ambassador Loshchinin.

I do not propose to comment on the wider context of the events of the last ten days in the South Caucasus – Ireland’s position is set out in the Conclusions of the General Affairs and External Relations meeting of the Council of the European Union of 13 August, and in statements by Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Mícheál Martin.

I would like to ask a question for the purpose of clarification, since we are on the record. The distinguished Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation referred to the use by Georgian forces of the multiple launch rocket system “Grad”, and said, if I heard him correctly, that this type of weapon is a cluster munition, which hits, not targets, but areas.

As delegations will be aware, the issue of cluster munitions is one to which my delegation pays close attention. As far as I am aware, the rockets of the “Grad” system can have a number of different types of warhead, including unitary high explosive warheads, warheads containing submunitions, and others. I would like to seek clarification from the delegation of the Russian Federation on whether it is being alleged that “Grad” rockets equipped with cluster warheads, in other words warheads containing submunitions, were used by Georgian forces on 8 August.

I thank you, Mr. President, and I thank the delegation of the Russian Federation in advance for its consideration of this request.

END