Conference on Disarmament resumes 1989 session.

Conference on Disarmament resumes 1989 session

The Conference on Disarmament opened the second part of its 1989 session on 13 June in Geneva, with its President expressing hope that the remainder of the session might benefit from improved relations between Eastern and Western countries, particularly between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Alfonso Garcia Robles of Mexico, Conference President for June, recalled that the Conference had been asked to redouble its efforts to resolve remaining issues so that a convention to ban or destroy all chemical weapons could be concluded. He said such a convention would not threaten the security of any State; rather it would reinforce the security of all States.

During June, subsidiary bodies continued work on chemical weapons, radiological weapons, prevention of an arms race in outer space, a comprehensive programme of disarmament, and security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon States. However, the Conference remained unable to set up similar bodies on the three nuclear items on its agenda--a nuclear test ban; cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament; and prevention of nuclear war.

President Garcia Robles recalled that the Conference had been asked to give highest priority to negotiations on a comprehensive nuclear test ban. He also appealed for completion of a Comprehensive Programme of Disarmament, as called for by the first special session of the General Assembly on disarmament in 1978.

The Netherlands in June introduced two documents--"The declaration of the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels (29-30 May 1989)" and a report entitled "A Comprehensive Concept of Arms Control and Disarmament", adopted by the North Atlantic Council at the same meeting.

Those documents, the Netherlands said, reflected how increased security could be achieved at substantially lower levels of armaments and underscored the Western commitment to a total ban on chemical weapons.

Sweden proposed the body add to its agenda a new item on a multilateral agreement to prevent incidents at sea.

In April, the German Democratic Republic transmitted to the Conference the texts of three documents adopted by the Committee of Foreign Ministers of the Warsaw Treaty States at its April session in Berlin. In the Declaration on Tactical Nuclear Weapons, the socialist countries proposed to the NATO States the start in the near future of separate talks on those arms in Europe. The negotiations would have to consider measures of effective international verification of tactical nuclear arms reduction and elimination and a set of confidence- and security-building measures in regard to such systems, the Declaration said. They could also examine the possibility of establishing an international control commission.

The 40-member Conference is the world's only multilateral negotiating body on disarmament issues. Its 1989 session is scheduled to conclude in August.

A solid foundation

The Conference concluded the first part of its 1989 session on 27 April after hearing a progress report on the work of the Ad Hoc Committee on Chemical Weapons.

Committee Chairman Pierre Morel of France said work had continued on such issues as a verification system; routine and challenge inspections; the relationship of the future convention with the 1925 Geneva Protocol and other international agreements.

One working group had held consultations on the concept of undiminished security during the transitional period between the entry into force of the convention and the destruction of chemical weapons.

Mr. Morel said: "We worked on the foundation, and if we have not really seen the building rise into the sky, it must be said that without solid foundations, nothing can be done".

The United States informed the Conference of progress made in its programme to destroy chemical weapons. Since 1970, it said, it had destroyed about 15 million pounds of chemical agent, and it had a comprehensive, integrated, tested plan for destruction of the remainder of its unitary chemical weapons stockpile. When the job was completed by April 1997, the United States would have spent well over $3 billion implementing the Congressionally mandated destruction programme.

It appeared, said the United States, that when the Conference on Disarmament completed its negotiation of a comprehensive chemical weapons ban, both the United States and the Soviet Union would have in place the infrastructure needed to comply with their treaty obligations to destroy all chemical weapons. Unless planning began well before entry into force, however, other States possessing chemical weapons would not be prepared. The United States urged all chemical weapons-possessing States to begin to plan and initiate the destruction of their chemical weapons stockpiles.

Belgium reiterated its offer of Brussels as host city for the international organization to be established under a future chemical weapons convention. That choice of Belgium, it said, would be symbolic in taht Belgium was where chemical weapons had first been used.

France submitted a working paper on the establishment of a Scientific Advisory Council to act as a high-level advisory body for organs of the future chemical weapons convention, in particular the Executive Council and the Technical Secretariat.

Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States reported to the Conference on national trial inspections of chemical facilities conducted in their countries. Those experiments are aimed at promoting experience on verification measures under a future convention.

Nuclear test ban

Simon B. A. Bullut of Kenya, Conference President for April, recommended continuous consultations on a mandate for an ad hoc committee on nuclear test ban.

The focus of such consultations was on a compromise draft mandate presented by Czechoslovakia in 1988, calling for substantive work on test ban issues "as a first step towards achieving a nuclear test ban treaty". Czechoslovakia had suggested that such a body should deal with such issues as a scope of the nuclear test ban; structure of the verification system; organizational framework of work on the verification system; and administrative and organizational aspects of the future nuclear test ban and the establishment of organs responsible for compliance with the test ban.