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<html> <head> <meta name="generator" content="Corel WordPerfect 10"> <meta http-equiv="content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <style> p { margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1px } body { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal } </style> </head> <body> March 14, 2005 GENEVA, Switzerland 2005/13 CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY NOTES FOR AN ADDRESS BY THE HONOURABLE PIERRE PETTIGREW, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AT THE CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT The delegations to the Conference on Disarmament constitute more than just the representatives to a specific multilateral forum: they are a community of diplomats devoted to the field of non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament as it is dealt with throughout the United Nations system and beyond. I know that despite the paralysis that has afflicted the Conference on Disarmament during the last eight years, many of you are constructively engaged in a variety of disarmament activities, from small arms and light weapons through to weapons of mass destruction. Many of these activities are bearing fruit, and we are heartened to have witnessed in the recent past such accomplishments of multilateral and human security cooperation as the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Protocol on Explosive Remnants of War, the Action Plan adopted at the Nairobi Summit to guide further work on implementing the Ottawa Landmines Convention and the practical exchanges of information at expert and annual meetings of States Parties to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. These and other achievements of the diplomats assigned here, however, cannot diminish our disappointment over the failure of the principal body, the Conference on Disarmament, to engage in substantive work. I agree with your President and Secretary-General that the revitalization of this Conference and its ability to overcome its protracted impasse will be enhanced by greater political-level support “for its noble causes.” If progress is to be made on multilateral cooperation dealing with crucial issues of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and the non-weaponization of outer space, there has to be a political value attached to doing so and a political cost to be paid for not allowing the enterprise to proceed. Focusing political attention on the Conference on Disarmament’s deadlock and its negative consequences for our individual and collective security interests is one way to get us out of the rut we are in. It will, however, take more than a handful of foreign ministers showing up this week at the Conference on Disarmament to effect a real change. It will take a realization in certain capitals that continued blockage of agreement on a Conference on Disarmament program of work is more detrimental to the security interests of those countries than it is beneficial. Unfortunately, in a 65-member body based on consensus, it is all too easy to obstruct and very difficult to obtain the universal support necessary to adopt a program of work. Canada, as a committed multilateralist, has always tried to be a constructive force in this forum, and we have shown flexibility in adjusting our preferences to accommodate the views of others in the interest of the common good. We call upon the members of the Conference on Disarmament to demonstrate similar flexibility. I have already referred to the important issues before this forum that it has been unable to address in a manner befitting a multilateral negotiating body. The negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, the consideration of the state of nuclear disarmament and the prevention of the weaponization of outer space are all issues that affect our security environment. They are all issues that have suffered from diplomatic neglect during a period when disturbing political and military developments relating to them have occurred. They are all issues for which the Conference on Disarmament is the ideal forum for action. But our ideals must be tempered by realism, and inaction is no substitute for action. If the Conference on Disarmament is prevented from taking up these issues, we believe that other multilateral avenues for addressing them should and need to be explored. A few days ago, on March 5, we marked the 35th anniversary of the entry into force of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT]. This treaty, with 188 States Parties, is the most widely adhered to international security agreement and has served as a foundation for the multilateral nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime. This May the Seventh Review Conference of the NPT will be held in New York. This Review Conference will come at a crucial juncture for the Treaty, which has suffered several major shocks to its authority and integrity in recent years. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [North Korea] demonstrated its complete disregard for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts by its withdrawal from the NPT. North Korea’s recent assertion that it now possesses nuclear weapons, together with its reluctance to re-engage in the Six-Party Talks, underlines the grave risk to regional and international peace and security posed by its nuclear program. Iran’s extensive past undeclared nuclear activities, together with its efforts to acquire the full nuclear fuel cycle, have resulted in deep concerns about its commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and strong suspicions that Iran has nuclear weapons ambitions. Permanent cessation of Iran’s uranium enrichment and other proliferation-sensitive activities is the only acceptable objective guarantee of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program. Although Canada supports the diplomatic efforts under way that are trying to resolve this issue, as Prime Minister Paul Martin has recently indicated, “we must be prepared to stand behind our words with stronger measures if necessary.” Canada wants to see the NPT emerge from the Review Conference strengthened in its power and effectiveness. This, in our view, will require a balanced outcome that incorporates tangible progress on the three key elements of the Treaty: non-proliferation, peaceful use of nuclear energy and nuclear disarmament. Reaffirmation of the NPT’s goal of nuclear disarmament and a renewed commitment to achieving this goal should be a key conclusion of the Review Conference. We also want to reinforce States Parties’ collective ownership and accountability for the Treaty and its implementation, through revised meeting arrangements. Here at the Conference on Disarmament, the focus is naturally on the disarmament dimension of the Treaty. The inability of the Conference on Disarmament to commence work has a direct and significant impact on the NPT Review Conference. At the last Review Conference in 2000, the Conference on Disarmament was specifically tasked to start work immediately on negotiations of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty to ban production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and to establish an appropriate subsidiary body to deal with the issue of nuclear disarmament. Five years later, the Conference on Disarmament has not managed to accomplish one iota of this work plan. The failure of the Conference on Disarmament to make progress on these two key items of business, when coupled with other failures to deliver on agreed disarmament measures, will diminish the disarmament side of the NPT equation. This failure will make it more difficult to obtain major new commitments on the non-proliferation side. So what happens here, or doesn’t happen here, has real consequences for the larger question of the NPT and the maintenance of what is a near-universal consensus around the Treaty and its goals. I spoke earlier about the need for flexibility and compromise if a program of work is to be agreed upon in this forum. Canada has shown this in its own approaches. Last summer, we suggested that a “streamlined” program of work involving Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty negotiations, coupled with discussions on nuclear disarmament (including the issue of negative security assurances) and the prevention of an arms race in outer space [PAROS] would represent a realistic and balanced package. More recently, we have indicated that we could also agree to the four ad hoc committees outlined in “food for thought” paper from the previous Conference on Disarmament President, provided that approach enjoyed universal support. We see the return very soon to substantive work by the Conference on Disarmament as the principal objective, and we have done our part in making the compromises necessary to bring this about. We expect no less from every member of this Conference. On the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty for example, we have long believed that this accord would represent a crucial step on the road to the elimination of nuclear weapons, by turning off the production tap of the material needed to fashion them. A former Canadian ambassador, the late Gerald Shannon, worked hard in the mid-1990s to develop a negotiating mandate for the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, which until recent months enjoyed universal support in this forum. We are convinced that this mandate remains the best basis for initiating negotiations. But precisely because our priority is the initiation of negotiations, rather than debates over the merits of any particular mandate, we are prepared to engage in negotiations toward a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty without any preconditions. It would be our hope that in the course of these negotiations, the benefits of “a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty,” as envisaged in the Shannon mandate, would become evident to all. We are willing to put our preferences aside in order to commence a genuine negotiation, and we would ask others to demonstrate a similar flexibility so that work can begin. On nuclear disarmament, we would have preferred to see a more ambitious mandate that would consider specific measures and new instruments. We were not alone in this preference; however, in the interest of achieving a consensus on a program of work, a simple discussion mandate has been proposed. Canada is prepared to go along with this proposal so that the important topics connected with this theme are addressed. On PAROS, Canada has long been associated with those who believe that an international agreement banning the deployment of weapons in outer space is an increasingly necessary goal and can be a practical exercise in preventive diplomacy. Here again, in order to foster a consensus, concessions were made and an original negotiating mandate was circumscribed as a discussion mandate. This issue is of sufficient import that we would be supportive if the Conference on Disarmament, as a first step, merely started to discuss it. Unfortunately, the flexibility shown by the earlier advocates of negotiation in agreeing to a dilution of the PAROS mandate has not been reciprocated, and the Conference on Disarmament has not been able to create a committee to begin to consider this theme. This issue of ensuring the non-weaponization of space is a topical, real-world security issue that is not going to go away just because the Conference on Disarmament hasn’t got its act together to formally consider it. The Government of Canada has already sponsored two symposiums on space security in Geneva and will be sending official speakers to a follow-up symposium to be held here on March 21 and 22 with co-sponsorship this time by China, Russia, the UNIDIR [United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research] and Canada’s Simons Foundation. Foreign Affairs Canada has funded and helped direct the work of an international group of experts in preparing a “space security index,” which we hope will become an annual record of the state of security in outer space and which will highlight developments affecting this realm. Diplomatically, the time has come to examine a variety of options to ensure that PAROS does not become just another empty acronym, whose content and purpose are forgotten even as it is ritually reaffirmed at UN gatherings. Last September, in his address to the General Assembly, the Prime Minister of Canada did more than just lament the “tragedy it would be if space became one big weapons arsenal and the scene of a new arms race.” He proposed a course of action in calling for the extension of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty’s ban on weapons of mass destruction to include all weapons based in space. The Conference on Disarmament remains our preferred forum for taking this work forward, but if it is unable to include this subject in a program of work and start implementing it soon, we and others will have to look elsewhere. Outer space may be infinite, our patience is not. I know that the vast majority of countries represented in this historic hall are as eager as the Canadian delegation to resume significant work. In our view, a practical, balanced program of work is at hand and needs only a modicum of flexibility in a couple of capitals in order to be realized. It is time for this work to be done. Canada supports the efforts of the current Conference on Disarmament President, Ambassador [Tim] Caughley, to obtain an accounting from member states as to what exactly prevents them from joining a consensus on a program of work and what realistic alternatives they can advance to achieve this end. The “noble cause” of multilateral cooperation in the field of disarmament requires no less. Thank you. </body> </html>

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