Thank you Mr President and I'd like to begin by thanking Your Excellency for convening this meeting today and to pay tribute to your lifelong commitment to disarmament, both regionally and globally. It's very fitting that, as a Nobel Peace Laureate, you are here presiding over this Council, with its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Thank you for being here.
We also welcome back to our Council Vice President Navarro of Panama. Thank you for your statement Sir and our thanks go also to the High Representative for Disarmament, Mr Duarte, for his concise briefing.
Mr President,
The United Kingdom shares your determination to look afresh at the challenges facing us in this field of disarmament. We are working with partners to strengthen all pillars of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to promote an Arms Trade Treaty to implement high common standards for conventional arms exports which are, of course, the weapons of daily destruction around the world. And it is why, for the United Kingdom, arms control, counter-proliferation and disarmament are about finding common ground to enhance our collective security which is at the heart of everything we do at the United Nations, and especially here in the Security Council.
The United Kingdom also welcomes the principle promoted by this debate of mainstreaming disarmament into development policy. This is particularly important in the field of conventional weapons, in small arms and light weapons, and in the disarmament and demobilisation of armed groups and their reintegration into their communities.
Mr President,
The United Kingdom is committed to strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty. We will show zero tolerance of proliferation, and we will work for a world free from nuclear weapons.
There must be progress on both sides of this, on both nuclear disarmament and on non-proliferation. And to support progress on non-proliferation, we need a reinvigorated approach to nuclear disarmament.
We are therefore calling for further reductions in the major nuclear arsenals and for progress on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and negotiations towards a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty.
In the meantime, the United Kingdom has been undertaking innovative work to address some of the technical challenges posed by disarmament. We have reduced our nuclear arsenal to just 160 operationally available warheads and we have offered to host a Conference for the Permanent 5 to discuss the technical aspects of verification of disarmament.
On the other side of the coin, proliferation of the nuclear fuel cycle poses grave dangers for regional and global stability as it paves the way for proliferation of nuclear weapons technology. Multilateral Nuclear Fuel Assurances provide a possible way for states to enhance their collective security and their energy diversity by exercising their rights under Article 4 of the NPT while avoiding proliferation of the most sensitive nuclear technologies.
And proliferation concerns are not only limited to nuclear technologies and material. Other emerging technologies contain threats as well as opportunities which is why the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention remain so important in this century.
Mr President,
On small arms and light weapons, the United Kingdom welcomes the progress at the Biennial Meeting of States on implementing fully the UN Programme of Action.
And collectively we have made real progress in the important field of Anti Personnel Landmines, covered by the Ottawa Convention. I would like to reconfirm the United Kingdom's strong support for the universalisation of this Convention, and to implement its provisions world-wide on stockpile for destruction and mine clearance.
The United Kingdom is the third largest donor to mine clearance programmes in affected countries where anti-personnel landmines still pose a serious humanitarian threat.
The United Kingdom also welcomes the successful negotiation earlier this year at the Dublin Conference of a new treaty that bans cluster munitions, a whole class of weapons. The end result is a Convention that will make a major contribution to addressing the humanitarian threat posed by these weapons. And we plan to sign the Convention on 3 December in two weeks' time.
My Prime Minister has made it a personal commitment to work with other countries to promote the widest possible adherence to the norms of the new Convention. In the UK, we have ceased to use to such weapons, we have begun the process of withdrawing them from service and placing them in a destruction programme and we have also added cluster munitions to the list of prohibited items for transfer.
Mr President,
I would like to conclude my remarks by reiterating the importance of the proposed Arms Trade Treaty. Achieving this Treaty is a goal which you, Mr President, have championed at the United Nations and in Central and Latin America and I pay tribute to your personal commitment. An Arms Trade Treaty has a significant role to play in ensuring collective international security. With one person killed every 90 seconds by conventional weapons, the irresponsible trade in conventional weapons creates instability and impacts directly on countries' ability to deliver sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals. An Arms Trade Treaty will address the issue of the irresponsible trade, and thereby contribute positively to international peace and security.
A number of countries have concerns about the proposal and these concerns must be addressed openly and honestly. But a properly regulated arms trade would be to the benefit of all: to our peacekeepers around the world, to law enforcement and security forces in Member States, to the business community that manufactures and sells arms and wants to do this responsibly and, above all, to ordinary people whose lives are shattered by our failure to control the unscrupulous and irresponsible trade in arms.
Thank you again, Mr President, for bringing this issue to the Security Council and for elevating our debate through your presence.
Thank you very much.
