Reaching Critical Will

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Statement by Ambassador Hamid Baeidi Nejad of Iran to the Conference on Disarmament 2nd September 2008

Unofficial Transcript

Thank you Mr President

I have the pleasure to speak today as the newly appointed Ambassador and the primary representative of my country today of the UN office and other international organization in Geneva. I heard that an important part of my work in Geneva would be dedicated to the negotiations and discussions held in this conference. I look forward therefore for efficient exchange of view and close cooperation with all my distinguished colleagues in this conference.

Mr President, it is the first time I speak under your presidency allow me to congratulate you for your assuming the Presidency of the Conference on Disarmament. I am confident that under your guidance and leadership, the conference will achieve fruitful results. You can rest assure of my delegations full support and cooperation in discharging your tasks.

Mr President, the period in which you have assumed in leading this august body is of utmost importance due to the fact we need to work together to adopt the 2008 report of the Conference on Disarmament. We would like to thank you and secretariat of the Conference for preparing and distributing among members states the draft report of CD’s 2008 activities. We continue to carefully examine this draft and wish to engage in constructive discussions with all our colleagues to finalize and adopt it in a way that is agreeable to all delegations.

Mr President, unhappily this report is submitted to the conference in an environment that the CD as a sole negotiating disarmament machinery has been failed to substantively progress on the negotiations of its agenda items. This situation of course is a result of some drastic changes in the international security priorities of some states members to this conference and hence not being able to agree with the modality outlined for a long time in this same conference under the United Nations General Assembly. I am sure that we will be able to discuss this issue further in our deliberations in the conference so we share the sentiments expressed by our colleagues about the situation in the Conference.

But Mr President, back to the question of the report of the conference, I would like to at this stage to remind some of the general principles that in our view should guide us in our discussions of the report. As stipulated in the Rules of Procedure of the Conference, the report should be factual and reflect the negotiations and work of the Conference. The Report therefore should not be open to interpretation and hence needs to avoid valued judgement unless agreed by all. Furthermore, we believe the report should be simple, readable, and non repetitive. The rule of transparency and openness should be observed throughout the process. Given the extensive activites of the conference this year, the report needs to reflect extensive the views of expressed in the course of our collective and diverse this year. In this context, unfortunate fact that no negotiations took place in the CD this year, and no consensus was reached on the program of work, needs to be duly reflected in the report.
We appreciate your efforts in making the draft report in a manner to be less controversial and closer to agreement by the member states, however we are of the view that the draft report needs some elaboration as well as some modification in some of its paragraphs in order to reflect fully the views expressed and the positions taken on different issues on the CD’s agenda.
These modifications are particularly when modifications are madeand contents of certain statements and documents which intend to summaries the activities of the Conference or unnecessarily in the drat report.

We believe that modification of those parts of the draft report will make it more factual and consistent with what actually happened on the ground. We have more comment on other parts of the draft report which will be presented to you and other delegations during informal consultations.

Mr President, we have full confidence in your wisdom and skills in leading our discussions and prepared to engage in serious negotiations to adopt a report that enjoys consensus of the Conference.

I thank you Mr President.