Mr Chairman,
Allow me to join others in congratulating you to your election as chairman for this important working group and to assure you of my delegation's full support.
The EU Presidency has made initial remarks on behalf of the European Union, to which Sweden fully subscribes.
In addition, I would like to contribute some thoughts with a particular focus on nuclear disarmament. Let me just add that this does not in any way mean that Sweden is any less preoccupied with nuclear proliferation issues. As other speakers have noted, nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are two sides of the same coin. The disarmament and non-proliferation regime is, as we all know, under pressure. The challenges posed by the question of Iran’s nuclear programme and by North Korea’s self-declared possession of nuclear weapons are serious concerns.
The U.S. - India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative has also given rise to a series of questions relating to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. One central aspect in this context is the decision by the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, which stipulates that new supply arrangements for the transfer of special fissionable material and nuclear equipment to non-nuclear-weapon States should require, as a necessary precondition, acceptance of IAEA full-scope safeguards and internationally legally binding commitments not to acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
There is an urgent need to make progress towards nuclear disarmament and to find ways to create momentum in international fora and processes in this endeavour. Current trends in this field, which rather point in the opposite direction, need to be reversed.
Steps to reduce nuclear arsenals have indeed been taken, unilaterally or as a result of bilateral agreements. Yet, almost 30 000 nuclear weapons exist in the world and approximately 25 000 of them are in the United States and the Russian Federation, according to figures from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The commitment among nuclear weapons states to the goal of nuclear disarmament remains weak, despite the change in the global security environment.
Old threats remain. New threats emerge. Some assert that nuclear disarmament is no longer a priority, or characterize the issue as a relic of the past. My Government’s view is that it is the nuclear weapons that should be viewed as relics of the past. They are not part of the solution to real or perceived threats. They are not security enhancers. They should not be used as surrogates for conventional defences.
In order to counter horizontal and vertical proliferation of nuclear weapons, and promote disarmament, the international community must work together. But this requires political will and a common purpose. We should not be content by reviewing and protecting what has already been agreed and achieved. We also need to find ways to go forward. We need to safeguard the agreements on nuclear disarmament reached in the Review Conferences of 1995 and 2000, including the CTBT. But we also need to elaborate on how the practical steps can be implemented in a logical and operational way, so that real systematic and progressive efforts can be made to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons in the not so distant future.
The deadlock of the Conference on Disarmament, which has been allowed to persist for much too long, has to be broken. Last year, a group of countries, including Sweden, took an initiative to promote progress in the CD, by suggesting that ad hoc committees under the General Assembly could be used to initiate substantive work, which could subsequently be carried forward within the CD. If the deadlocked situation persists, this idea may need to be revisited. Other initiatives to stimulate progress would be most welcome.
My delegation sincerely hopes that this session of the UNDC can explore ideas and develop suggestions on how nuclear disarmament can be taken forward.
As an example, allow me to list a number of concrete steps that could be taken by all states possessing nuclear weapons relatively soon:
- De-alerting of all nuclear forces. The maintenance of thousands of nuclear warheads on hair-trigger alert, ready to launch within 15 minutes, greatly increases the risk of unauthorized, accidental or premature launch;
- Abandonment of all plans to develop new weapons and new types of nuclear weapons through national moratoria to this effect;
- Signing and ratifying of the CTBT, with renewed commitments to moratoria on nuclear testing, and the closure of nuclear test sites;
- Immediate commencement of negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty in the CD, taking into account both disarmament and non-proliferation measures. Declared moratoria by all the relevant states that have not yet done so on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes. Closing of fissile material production facilities;
-Follow-up to the Moscow treaty, by starting negotiations aimed at a succeeding treaty so that the number of nuclear weapons in the United States and the Russian Federation – as an intermediary step - be counted in the 100s and not in the 1000s. Such negotiations need to include non-strategic nuclear weapons, and take irreversibility, transparency, and verification measures into account;
- Initiating a process that would lead to the establishment of a zone free from weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, parallel to the Middle East peace process-talks. Mr Chairman,
The independent international Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction has been at work, under the chairmanship of Dr Hans Blix, for the past two years. Its recommendations are currently being finalised in order to be presented to the Secretary-General later this spring. My Government hopes and believes that these recommendations will contribute to meeting our common need for ideas and impulses for a new start, which in turn will make it possible again to achieve some much-needed progress on nuclear disarmament.
Thank you, Mr Chairman.