CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT (CD)

STATEMENT BY SOUTH AFRICA TO CD ON 2 MAY 2002 AND WORKING PAPER ON FMT

Mr President,

I would like first to congratulate you on your assumption of the Presidency. My delegation will of course continue to lend you its full support and continued cooperation.

Mr President

It is obviously with deep regret that the Conference on Disarmament, which is defined as "the single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum of the international community" and which "has the primary role in substantive negotiations on priority questions of disarmament", has remained unable to agree on on a Program of Work. This is despite the fact that there is almost unanimous support in the CD for some mechanism to deal with the issues we have been deliberating on the last few years. This is despite the fact that there is general agreement that nuclear disarmament, the prevention of an arms race in outer space and banning the production of fissile material is a concern of the entire international community and that United Nations General Assembly resolutions call on us to deal with these issues.

Mr President,

I believe that it is incumbent upon me to make the point to those delegations who continue to refuse to recognise the legitimate concerns of other States, while insisting that we should respect and show understanding for theirs, that continued intransigence is likely to exacerbate and not improve the situation.

South Africa would urge the delegations involved to again reconsider their positions, because proposals over the last months and those presently under discussion reflect a very moderate approach, far less than our own and the national positions of other delegations in this room. Although I did not take the floor in the informals earlier today, it will be clear from this statement that we could have gone along with the current proposal, in the same way as we could have accepted many of the compromise proposals by previous Presidents.

Mr President

My prime reason for me asking for the floor today is to introduce a working paper on the possible scope and requirements of a fissile material treaty. We have taken the floor on earlier occasions to elaborate on South Africa 's views on this issue but hope that by introducing this paper, we can add a little more constructive focus to an issue that has been long overdue for negotiation in this body. This would hopefully also complement the noteworthy efforts, particularly by the Dutch, Japanese and Australian delegations in Geneva , to sustain and promote interest in negotiating a fissile material treaty.

The South African working paper attempts to deal with some of the most vexing issues that negotiations on a fissile material treaty presents. South Africa has, due to its own unique historical experience with the destruction of its limited nuclear weapons program and the completeness investigation undertaken by the International Atomic Energy Agency, acquired some practical insights that may be of some benefit to Member States. This is particularly the case regarding stocks, where we underline the difficulties associated with this issue and offer, what we consider to be a practical, achievable and effective manner of dealing with the issue in a manner that fulfils nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation objectives. I would like to kindly request that this working paper be circulated as an official document of the Conference.

Mr President, I thank you.