Civil society should be included in informal meetings
Viola Giuliano | Reaching Critical Will
13 May 2014
The second part of the Conference on Disarmament (CD) for 2014 started this week. In the plenary session held today, 13 May the 2013, under the presidency of Japanese Ambassador Toshio Sano, delegations from Algeria and Kyrgyzstan took the floor to deliver statements.
- The CD President opened the Plenary Session reminding delegations that the re-establishment of the IWG and the adoption of a schedule of activities is not to be considered a goal in itself.
- Member states to the CD approved the request of Costa Rica to participate as an observer for the 2014 works of the Conference.
- After the consultation among the CD President, the co-chair of the IWG, the Ambassador of Ecuador and the vice co-chair, the Ambassador of Australia, circulated a document containing some ideas for a programme of work. The document will be discussed at on 20 May at 3pm.
- The Ambassador of Algeria asked for civil society to be able to participate in the informal discussions, as the informal character of discussions should not impede the contribution on civil society.
- The CD President stated that it would be impossible for him to set any general rule on the matter, and the decision on whether to include civil society to informal meetings will be taken during consultations with the coordinators.
- Ambassador Iskakova of Kyrgyzstan delivered a statement on behalf of the states parties to the Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (CANWFZ), which drew attention to the recent signing of the additional protocol to the CANWFZ treaty by the NPT nuclear weapons states. She underlined that this was the first time that these states agreed to sign negative assurances all at the same time. Kyrgyzstan, the depositary of the protocol, called for more efforts towards the ratification process in order to achieve it before the beginning of the 2015 NPT Review Conference.
Next plenary meeting
Next CD plenary meeting will be convened on Tuesday, 20 May at 10 am in the Council Chamber.