Statement by Ambassador Savitri Kunadi in the Plenary Meeting of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, 6 August

Mr. President, on June 11, 1998 Ambassador Norberg of Sweden had presented in the CD Plenary, on behalf of the delegations of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa and Sweden, the Joint Declaration "Towards a Nuclear-weapon Free World : The Need or a New Agenda" issued on June 9, 1998. India noted that the declaration contains a number of valuable suggestions which deserve consideration by the international community. The Minister of State for External Affairs of India, Mrs Vasundhara Raje, on June 16, 1998, wrote separate letters to the Foreign Ministers of these eight countries expressing India's readiness to co-operate with them in collective efforts for the establishment of nuclear-weapon free world.

The Joint Declaration is a timely reminder that in spite of nearly 100 resolutions of the UN General Assembly reflecting the will of the international community, decisive steps for creating a nuclear weapon free world have still not been taken. In her letter the Minister of State for External Affairs underlined that partial measures for non-proliferation will not work. The road map is clear - we have dealt with other categories of weapons by negotiating multilateral treaties that are comprehensive, universal and non-discriminatory. We need to adopt a similar approach to deal with nuclear weapons.

Mr. President, India's response to the Joint declaration underscores the fact that as a nuclear weapon state, our commitment to pursuing global nuclear disarmament in order to achieve a nuclear-weapon free world remains undiluted.

Mr. President, I would now wish to set out our views on agenda item 4 entitled "Effective international arrangements to assure non nuclear-weapon states against the use of nuclear weapons".

India has consistently maintained that the only credible guarantee against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons lies in their total elimination. Until this objective is reached, as an interim measure, there exists an obligation on part of the nuclear weapon states to assure non nuclear weapon states against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, as also that these weapons will not be used as instruments of pressure, intimidation and blackmail. This obligation should be of an internationally legally binding character, clear, credible, universal and without discrimination. We welcome the resumption of work in the CD after a pause of three years, on the basis of its decision contained in CD 1501. We also record our appreciation to the Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee Ambassador de Icaza of Mexico from whose vast diplomatic experience and skills the Ad Hoc Committee has greatly benefitted.

At the outset, it bears recalling that NSAs have been a longstanding agenda item of the Conference on Disarmament. Although much useful work was done during the previous Ad Hoc Committees, this fact also bears testimony to the inability of the Conference on Disarmament to successfully conclude its work on this item. We do not need to delve here on the reasons for the inability of the CD over the years to bring to a successful conclusion its consideration of NSAs. Suffice to mention that NSAs, a long standing demand of the non nuclear weapon states, was not accorded the same priority as other items on the nuclear non-proliferation agenda and in fact remained its poor cousin.

The consideration of security assurances have been plagued from the beginning with linkages not with the objectives of nuclear disarmament but with that of non-proliferation. Seen in the latter perspective, security assurances remained confined to what the nuclear weapon states thought fit to provide at their discretion. There remained an unfulfilled need for these assurances to be multilaterally negotiated, legally binding and comprehensive. Securiy assurances remained interim measures without an objective, save that of finding a place in a framework that enabled the nuclear weapon states to retain in perpetuity their privileged possession of nuclear weapons.