• Statement by the delegation of the Czech Republic to the First Committee on the Draft Resolution A/C.1/50/L., Report of the Conference on Disarmament

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Statement by the delegation of the Czech Republic to the First Committee on the Draft Resolution A/C.1/50/L., Report of the Conference on Disarmament

The Czech delegation welcomes submitted Report of the Conference on Disarmament and highly appreciates the work carried out during the CD 1995 Session by the Ad Hoc Committee on a Nuclear Test Ban. We are firmly convinced that negotiations on the text of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will be successfully concluded before opening of the Fifty-First UNGA Session in autumn 1996. Nevertheless, allow me, Mr. Chairman, to make some remarks on the course and results of the CD 1995 Session.

The Czech Republic considers the Conference on Disarmament to be the most important multilateral forum for negotiations and working out of the international legally- binding instruments on arms control and disarmament. Its regular functioning and proved mechanism enable to keep a high standard and prestige of the CD, lastly resulting in the conclusion of the CWC. At present, however, we can notice symptoms of certain crisis, let us say, crisis of confidence and understanding. A number of the CD member states attaches the highest priority to the nuclear disarmament not only for fear of huge arsenals of nuclear weapons but also because of their feeling that the outlasting existence of the group of nuclear powers is an expression of hegemony and discrimination. They urge to proceed concrete negotiations on a ban of use and on nuclear disarmament at a much better pace than so far and they condition their willingness to solve any other urgent matters by the progress achieved in the nuclear field. From our view, mainly three issues are concerned: starting of the work of the Cut- Off Ad Hoc Committee, reestablishing of the TIA one and the expansion of the CD membership. Especially the third issue is now in a focus of our attention as the Czech Republic, after the split of former Czechoslovakia, has only an observer status. Besides, we are convinced that the current CD member basis does not reflect a reality of the Post Cold War World.

The Czech delegation considers linking and conditioning among problems as contraproductive; it creates an atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion and in such climate nuclear powers can hardly come to decisions on substantive steps to nuclear disarmament. We are afraid of the fact that an outlasting climate of confrontation and mistrust within the CD could finally lead as much as to a loss of its ability. Then the international community would have, from our point of view, only two choices: either to renounce CD efforts or to recommend to re-evaluate the CD principle of adopting decisions by consensus.