Thank you, Mr. President.

I wish to express to you in the name of the Algerian government our appreciation for the very competent, professional way in which you have directed our deliberations. I must say that this has continued a tradition that I really enjoyed this year of strong cooperative work between the members of the p6.  I think as the distinguished Ambassador of Sweden just mentioned, in the context where rotation of presidents is so rapid, as might lead to some discontinuity in the pursuit of a common objective.  The establishment of the p6 as an informal mechanism to ensure dynamism and continuity has been a godsend.  And that is why in May I paid tribute to the initiator of this approach to governance of the CD, the Ambassador of Poland.  I hope and I am sure that based on the experience of this year that the p6 of next year will continue this tradition of cooperative and converging engagement in the pursuit of shared objectives.

So, I would also like to express my thanks and gratitude to the distinguished minister state minister of Hungary and my colleagues who have referred to Algeria’s contribution to CD 1864.  To repeat that this would not have been possibly had it not been for the spirit of the p6 and for the support and understanding of every single member of this Conference.

The assessment of this year’s performance could be seen as a glass that is half full or a glass that is half empty. My Delegation would consider that it was a glass that was indeed half full. Perhaps we were over optimistic on the 29 of May when we thought that we were really going to get down to business after the adoption of CD 1864.  It was like climbing a mountain, when you think you get to the top of the mountain, but when you get to that point you see that the mountain is still higher and you have to pursue further efforts.

I think that if we asses this situation, we could say that the CD 1864 already came pretty late in 2009 and it would have been a very fortunate situation if we had started, but I can understand that there were still some issues that were sensitive in terms of procedure and perhaps we were not sufficiently aware of these issues that cropped up afterwards.
The difficulty of the work of this Conference, Mr. President, is related to this rapid cycle of rotation, I referred to the presidents changing so rapidly – six times a year - and also to the fact that the Programme of Work has - as was emphasised by the distinguished representative of Pakistan quite brightly - a one year span whereas the subjects of this of thus one year span Programme of Work are multiannual by nature.

The problem is to reconcile these two parameters which not very logically fit in very well with one another. I think that we spent a lot of time in the second part of this year trying to reconcile this contradiction in a way by establishing principles of how the system should work. If you do that you, of course, you hit the snag, because by definition there is a contradiction.

So, I think that what I would suggest as a preferable course for next year is that we do not discuss policies and abstractions on how we rotate, we roll-over, what we do in terms of a Programme of Work. We just get on with a job of agreeing on a Programme of Work. I do not think anybody in this hall will have to go on a Tabula Rasa basis but that every year we would in order to achieve a Programme of Work we could only achieve one every ten or twelve years.

So, it is a question of common sense.  And I think that the best thing is not to discuss in abstract, but to get done with the job and to realise that in addition to the Programme of Work there are the components of distribution of office bearers for the seven items including the four core items which is something that should be looked at now that we've had this experience of this year. We should look at all these elements simultaneously and start doing that now, Mr. President, between you and the incumbent President from Bangladesh already try to establish some thinking and some approach in informal contacts as to how we could really get the process started as soon as possible.

The p6 does not exist institutionally, nor do the regional groups exist institutionally. They are all informal, but they are pretty useful.

So, I am sure that the contacts with these groups of the Conference would be helpful to try and look at all these issues and not wait to first adopt a Programme of Work next year.  Perhaps if we could get this process started simultaneously now, perhaps we could start next year early on in the day.

So, we have to do that and we are keeping in mind the preoccupation that we all share.  Sometimes we find difficulty in articulating it: The concern of preserving the legitimate security interests of all Parties concerned - nuclear and non nuclear, developed and developing. We know that whatever we put it in Programme of Work that if we do create a general feeling not in the substantive work that yes we are going to move on all of these issues in a balanced manner to take into account all the Parties I mentioned, that the system is going to break down again

So, adopting a Programme of Work next year should not be suspected by anybody of meaning that someone is going to take one of the core issues and run away with the ball as it were and leave the other Parties standing. It is obvious that we all have some preferences. We all have some priorities. But the beauty of this Conference is that we try to reconcile this, knowing that by virtue of the consensus rule we an only achieve our priorities if we taken into account the priorities of others.

Before I conclude, I would like to express to the Distinguished Secretary General of the Conference, and to the very able staff of the Secretariat, our appreciation for a job well done and I would also like to say to all the members of the CD how much my delegation has appreciated working with all of you. We have different and sometimes contradicting preoccupations but there is a spirit of partnership - a very congenial spirit of partnership - which is an additional reason on top of what we have achieved this year and there are achievements.

I was feeling a bit pessimistic in the second half of the year but now what has been achieved today was not easy but it is a second big victory for this year after the 29 of May. And I am sure that with the energy that we have accumulated that with this cooperative spirit we can all be proud.

I wish that some other fora in Geneva could take a leaf out of book in terms of cooperative spirit and join with efforts for the good of humanity.

I thank you, Mr. President.

777 UN Plaza - 6th Floor - New York, NY - 10017 - Ph: 212.682.1265 - Fax: 212.286.8211 - info@reachingcriticalwill.org
This site was created by Kache Productions ©2008