Pakistan has warned that the danger of the use of nuclear weapons today was as high as during the cold war due to the lack of political will to advance the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda. Speaking in the United Nation Disarmament Commission on Tuesday.
Pakistan's UN Ambassador Munir Akram said the consensus on disarmament and non-proliferation had broken down, and he called for evolving a "new security consensus" to address those objectives in a balanced manner.
Outlining the reasons for the break down of the consensus, Ambassador Akram cited several negative developments, including the fact that none of the five original nuclear-weapons States appeared ready to foreswear nuclear weapons, and some of them were seeking to develop new nuclear weapons.
In addition, he said, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) had no realistic prospect of coming into force any time soon. There was also growing fear that non-State actors and terrorist organisations might develop the skills to steal material for use in a "dirty bomb".
To reach a new consensus on disarmament and non-proliferation, the ambassador said there should be a basic premise, namely recognition of the right to equal security of all States, which could only be promoted collectively and multilaterally.
Also, he said, the motives and compulsion that drove States to acquire weapons of mass destruction must be addressed, among them perceived threats from superior forces, disputes and conflicts with more powerful States, and discrimination in the application of international norms and laws.
The Commission's annual substantive session, expected to conclude on 27 April, is the second in a three-year cycle focusing on two agreed agenda items - nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation, and confidence-building in the conventional weapons sphere.
Opening the Commission's meeting on Monday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced disappointment in the minimal progress made in curbing the threats posed by accumulation of weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons, and called for increased global co-operation to address disarmament issues.
In his speech, the ambassador said that some might say that the Commission had not lived up to its potential role, "but then this is so for the rest of the UN disarmament machinery. It is a failure of political will to advance on the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda".
He said that, with the growth in number of States possessing nuclear weapons, rising regional tension and reliance on doctrines justifying "battlefield" use of nuclear weapons, "the danger of the use of nuclear weapons today is as high as at any time during the cold war".
Ambassador Akram called on the Disarmament Commission to seek to reverse, if not halt, some of the negative trends, saying Pakistan had already circulated a Working Paper to help develop a new consensus on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation".
It was in the long-term interest of the nuclear-weapons States to demonstrate a renewed commitment to achieve nuclear disarmament within a reasonable time frame, he said. There was also a need to evolve an agreed approach for the promotion of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, in accordance with the international obligations of States and on a non-discriminatory basis.
Until disarmament was achieved, Ambassador Akram said non-nuclear-weapons States should have the assurances that they would not be threatened with the use of nuclear or even conventional weapons, in the format of a universal, unconditional and legally binding treaty. Nuclear-weapons States needed to commit that they would not develop and deploy 'new" and "useable" nuclear weapons.
The ambassador said steps were needed to establish a stable and balanced security environment in sensitive regions such as South Asia, the Middle East and North-East Asia, involving nuclear restraints and non-proliferation measures, a stable conventional balance, and the resolution of underlying security problems and threats.
"It is also important to normalise the relationship of the three non-NPT States with the non-proliferation regime and secure their support for a revitalised regime," he said. Reality and legality should be reconciled. Such normalisation could not be achieved by multiplying discrimination and double standards.
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