Nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East – First Cttee debate – Verbatim records (excerpts)

Official Records

General Assembly

Fifty-first session

First Committee

4th meeting

Tuesday, 15 October 1996, 3 p.m.

New York

Chairman:  Mr. Alyaksandr Sychou ……………………. (Belarus)

The meeting was called to order at 3 p.m.

Agenda items 60 to 81 (continued)

General debate on all disarmament and international security agenda items

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Mr. Elaraby (Egypt) (interpretation from Arabic): …

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Regrettably, the Middle East lags far behind Africa in this regard, despite the repeated calls and resolutions for the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.  These began here in the First Committee in 1974, and the General Assembly has been adopting resolutions to this effect unanimously since 1980. Unfortunately, these resolutions have not yet been translated into reality. In this regard, we note the importance of the resolution on the Middle East adopted by the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference. I should like to reaffirm here that the mere adoption of this resolution was never an end in itself; what is required is its implementation. In this regard, the three nuclear-weapon States that cosponsored the resolution have a special responsibility.

These repeated resolutions, adopted over a period of more than 20 years, reflect the international community's concern at the existence in Israel of an advanced nuclear programme, that is not governed by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. We cannot afford any ambiguity in this regard, and we once again call on Israel, the only State in the Middle East that possesses nuclear facilities not governed by IAEA safeguards, to accede to the NPT and to place its nuclear facilities under the full-scope safeguards system of the IAEA. In this regard, Egypt welcomes the decisions of Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates to accede to the NPT. We also welcome the statement made before the General Assembly last month by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Oman on his country's decision to sign the Treaty. That signature would leave Israel as the only State — I repeat, the only State — in the region not to have acceded to the NPT despite its advanced nuclear capabilities, which are well known to the whole world.

We will continue to strive towards establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East within the framework of the broader initiative launched by President Mubarak in April 1990 calling for the establishment in the Middle East of a zone free from all nuclear weapons.

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The meeting rose at 6.20 p.m.

This record contains the original texts of speeches delivered in English and interpretations of speeches delivered in the other languages.  Corrections should be submitted to original speeches only.  They should be incorporated in a copy of the record and be sent under the signature of a member of the delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, Room C-178.  Corrections will be issued after the end of the session in a consolidated corrigendum.