Second part ends without any progress

Anina Dalbert | Reaching Critical Will

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) met on Tuesday, 25 June under the Iraqi presidency, for the last plenary of the second part of the 2013 session. The CD heard statements by Mr. Hoshyar Zebari, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iraq, the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Angela Kane, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Anita E. Friedt of the United States, the incoming CD President, the Ambassador of Iraq, Germany, Chile, Netherlands, India, Russia, Belarus, and Iran.

High level statements

Mr. Hoshyar Zebari, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iraq stressed his government’s commitment to all existing disarmament treaties and highlighted the importance he attached to general and complete disarmament. He noted that the priority of Iraq in the CD was nuclear disarmament underlined the importance of the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

The High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Ms. Angela Kane noted that the current impasse in the CD has led to proposals for alternative negotiating areas. She believed that the longer the stalemate exists, the greater will be the temptation to pursue such options. “Personally, I would not welcome such development”, she stated and went on to argue that only universality of a disarmament treaty could lead to the total elimination of a weapon.

She also stated “consent and consensus are not mere inconveniences, but essential elements in forging a disarmament norm that is truly universal in scope.” However, despite insisting on the importance of consensus and the need to wait for agreement by all states before starting negotiations, she did recognize that lack of disarmament and negotiations on disarmament leads to real insecurity in the world. Unfortunately, her speech did not really come up with any new concrete suggestions for how states eager to address this increasing insecurity caused by the deadlock could do aside from “resume productive work of this distinguished institution.”

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Anita E. Friedt of the United States mostly repeated what US President Obama said in a speech in Berlin on 19 June. She promised concrete steps on Obama’s Prague agenda and called upon Russia to negotiate further reductions up to one third of their strategic deployed arsenal. Ms. Friedt also stressed the importance of the long overdue FMCT negotiations and introduced a US fact sheet on “Nuclear Weapons Employment Strategy of the United States” as an official CD document.

Farewell speeches

Ambassador Hellmut Hoffmann of Germany was the first one of three departing ambassadors to give a farewell speech aiming to share “some personal reflections with [those present] and colleagues”. He began by looking back to the beginning of his assignment and the hope in the air back in 2009 as well as to his student days and the realization of the “catastrophic humanitarian consequences” and the dangers these weapons pose for mankind. However, he highlighted that it is not enough to denounce those possessing or seeking nuclear weapons but one must seek to find the root causes of why states think they are necessary. Citing the UNSG, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon who said “the world is overarmed and peace is underfunded”, Abassador Hoffmann underlined the “absurd numerical levels” and the high figures of expenditure for nuclear complexes in the coming century.

Ambassador Hoffmann welcomed Obama’s Berlin speech and particularly the mentioning of the reductions in U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, for this is of particular importance to Germany. He regretted not to know the recipe and solution for the CD, however he once again asserted the important contribution and FMCT could make as well as the fact that one should continue to focus on this, and if there is a true will to achieve such a treaty it should be possible.

Ambassador Sujata Mehta of India and Ambassador Paul van der Ijssel of the Netherlands also bid their farewell. Ambassador van der Ijssel called for an ambitious realism and encouraged everyone to “keep on trying”.

Changes in UNODA

The representatives of Russia, Belarus and India raised concerns about the proposed reforms of the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs (ODA), such as the renaming of the ODA branch in Geneva, the creation of a Strategic Planning Unit (SPU) as well as transferring some responsibilities within ODA from Geneva to New York and the other way around.

Ms. Kane made it clear that any suggested changes will have no financial or personnel implications, and argued that the idea was only to make ODA more efficient and coherent. She clarified that the renaming of the Geneva branch would only be a simplification and will highlight that the branch has other responsibilities than just the CD. She also believed that the creation of a SPU will be a cross cutting unit that builds on the competence from existing staff.

Next plenary meeting

The third part of the 2013 session will begin with a plenary meeting on Tuesday 30 July at 10:00 in the Council Chamber.