Reaching Critical Will

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Unofficial transcript
Chile – Ambassador Carlos Portales
25 August 2009

Thank you very much Mr. President. On behalf of the delegation of Chile I wish to congratulate you on having assumed the responsibility of leading the ways of the Conference on Disarmament and I offer you our cooperation during your mandate, particularly in drafting the annual report which this body conveys to the United Nations General Assembly.

I also take this opportunity to welcome new ambassadors of Germany, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan and the Netherlands. Allow me also to wish you every success on this path of peace and cooperation.

Mr. President, allow me through you to congratulate all the members of the P6 – the six presidents of the year underway - particularly the ambassador of Algeria for having brought together the necessary consensus which made it possible on May 29 to adopt the programme of work.

I also wish to acknowledge the ceaseless efforts made by the presidencies of Argentina and Australia carried out by the ambassadors Roberto Garcia Moritan and Caroline Millar. Both of them were fine examples of creativity, imagination, inclusion and transparency - above all in the way in which they showed the virtue of perseverance.

Mr. President, Chile has firm convictions concerning disarmament and security. These are based on the guiding principles of the indivisibility of international security and the prevalence of collective security over and above the individual requirements of states. As we have affirmed in other fora national security does not exist in isolation and cannot be invoked to undermine or affect that of others.

Shortly, we will be concluding the 2009 session of the Conference on Disarmament and although we have adopted the work programme three months ago we have been not been able to reach the necessary consensus to implement it. This situation in itself is most unfortunate.

We have often heard it said that the Conference on Disarmament is the only multilateral negotiating forum on disarmament, non-proliferation and weapons control instruments. But ultimately this unique forum has not been negotiating for twelve years.

Chile would like the Conference on Disarmament to function according to the goal for which it was set up. Often, and rightly so, the notion of national security is involved in our debates, but what better way to preserve this national security than by making this negotiating body move forward through the rule of consensus? If the CD is to be irrelevant and cannot operate will we not be opening up an area for other initiatives to emerge in which this rule will not be in accordance with this conference? We call upon you to think seriously about this point.

Mr. President, it is frankly unacceptable when one bears in mind the many needs and challenges faced by the international community for us to allow ourselves to keep a highly qualified diplomatic body, a high level technical secretariat and a team of specialised high interpreters to remain unproductive.

Despite everything we have not lost our optimism nor have we given up on our ambitions. Indeed, we should redouble our efforts and as early as possible at least on a procedural level attempt to implement the work programme. Otherwise, it would be truly absurd to try and explain the situation in our annual report

The inter-sessional committee which will continue until the end of 2009 and which will be led by you, Mr. President, can provide us with a good opportunity to see how we can tackle substantive issues on the work programme which for time reasons we have not been able to deal adequately with during the weeks of the sessions.

Mr. President, we believe that there are merits in giving thought to an alternative of this kind or indeed to any other options that you and the members of the conference deem appropriate. Of course, the delegation of Chile will always be ready to cooperate.