patth@columbia.edu (Patt Haring) (04/19/89)
From: cucard!ccnysci!patth@columbia.edu (Patt Haring)
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*CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT I
NUCLEAR-TEST BAN AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION
DISCUSSED IN CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT
PR (Based on information received from the UN Information Service.)
GENEVA, 13 April -- The Conference on Disarmament heard statements today
by Norway, Poland, the Federal Republic of Germany, Egypt, Romania, Finland,
Japan (on behalf of the group of Western countries) and the German Democratic
Republic (on behalf of the group of socialist countries).
The representative of Norway, speaking on verification issues of a
nuclear-test ban, announced that the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
planned to host a workshop in Oslo next year on the subject of regional arrays
and their use in seismic verification research.
The representative of Poland said the Conference on Disarmament should
embark immediately on negotiations on a comprehensive nuclear-test ban. The
effective verification of the discontinuance of nuclear tests could be
provided for only on the basis of a world-wide network. This reinforced the
legitimacy of the demand for a multilaterally negotiated comprehensive
nuclear-test ban.
The representative of Japan, speaking on behalf of the group of Western
countries, said the Group of Scientific Experts had tentatively scheduled for
January 1990 the second preliminary phase of the Second Technical Test of the
conceptual concept of a modern international seismic data exchange system.
The group of Western countries hoped that phase would be carried out with
broader participation than had been achieved during the start-up experiments.
The representative of the German Democratic Republic, speaking on behalf
of the group of socialist countries, said the advanced stage of elaboration of
a system of the international exchange of seismic data made it all the more
imperative that the Conference on Disarmament consider other methods of
verification of a nuclear-test ban. The group of socialist countries proposed
that an exchange of views be held concerning the place and role of the seismic
component in the overall system of verification.
The representatives of the Federal Republic of Germany and of Finland
spoke about the national trial inspections of the non-production of chemical
weapons carried out in chemical facilities of their countries. The
representative of Egypt, commenting on the elaboration of the chemical weapons
convention, stated that the conditio sine qua non for a State to enter into a
convention that affected important aspects of its national security was that
such a convention must be applicable to all States. It was imperative that
certain key countries, including all those in the so-called "hot regions",
should become parties simultaneously.
The representative of Romania, addressing the subject of a comprehensive
programme of disarmament, said security could only be realized by disarmament
in all areas, by the prohibition and elimination, in a coherent process, of
nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and of other weapons of mass destruction.
Statements in Debate
HELGA HERNES (Norway) stated that this session of the Conference on
Disarmament was focused on the necessity of concluding the chemical weapons
convention at the earliest date. This would be a year of crucial importance
as regards efforts to solve the outstanding political and technical issues.
Sensitive and complex issues still remained to be resolved, in particular
questions concerning verification of non-production. Another major unresolved
issue was the challenge inspection system. The convention must contain a
provision giving States parties the right to submit a request for on-site
inspection within 48 hours, which could not be rejected. The mandatory nature
of the challenge inspections represented one of the cornerstones of the new
convention.
The United States and the Soviet Union were still the only countries
which had declared that they possessed chemical weapons, she said. Norway
called on other countries possessing such weapons to make similar declarations
and to draw up plans for the destruction of their stocks. As a
confidence-building measure, all chemical weapons States should furnish
information about the number of their stocks, their location, composition and
overall size. Norway had recently provided the Ad Hoc Committee on Chemical
Weapons with information concerning production, processing and consumption of
relevant toxic chemicals and their precursors.
Norway continued its research programme on verification of alleged use of
chemical weapons carried out by the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment,
she said. The programme was based on field experiments designed to provide
realistic data for the development of procedures for verification of alleged
use of chemical weapons. During the coming summer session, Norway intended to
present the results of studies on a new system for analysing the gas
concentration in samples of soil, vegetation, clothing, and so on, not
previously used for such purposes. Until a global ban became effective,
export control of dual-purpose chemicals would play an important role in
preventing the proliferation of chemical weapons. Norway had imposed export
controls on 13 such dual-purpose chemicals.
A comprehensive nuclear-test ban was another priority issue on the agenda
of the Conference on Disarmament, she said. The draft mandate tabled by
Czechoslovakia last year would permit a committee on a nuclear-test ban to
initiate substantive work on specific and interrelated test-ban issues. Those
issues would have to be dealt with in detail before a test-ban treaty was
concluded.
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