Mideast situation/Disarmament – Conference debate – Press release (excerpts)

             DCF/402

31 August 2000

CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT HEARS STATEMENTS FROM ISRAEL, UNITED STATES,

ROMANIA, IRAQ AND MYANMAR

GENEVA, 31 August (UN Information Service) — The Conference on Disarmament this morning held its weekly plenary meeting, hearing statements from the Representatives of Israel, the United States, Romania, Iraq and Myanmar.

The incoming President of the Conference, Ambassador Petko Draganov of Bulgaria, said he would strive to build on the progress achieved by his predecessors towards a consensus on the programme of work.  The common objective was not out of reach, but it would require still more patience and persistence. He said he did not subscribe to the opinions of those who considered that the Conference was in a crisis or was even dying.

Ambassador David Peleg of Israel said his country was actively involved in promoting peace with its neighbours.  However, in spite of its continued efforts to extend the peace process towards the goal of a comprehensive peace, there were still States in the Middle East which threatened Israel's security and continued to negate its very right to exist.  One of these States, Iraq, had devoted a major part of its vast income from oil to develop weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.  It was against this background and threats that Israel had attempted to fashion its arms control policy.

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DAVID PELEG (Israel) said his country attached great importance to the Conference on Disarmament, seeing it as a unique forum for negotiating freely issues of arms control and disarmament on a basis of consensus.  As a multilateral forum with a global approach, the Conference should avoid assuming mandates of other fora, bilateral or regional.

Israel was actively involved in promoting peace with its neighbours.  However, in spite of its continued efforts to extend the peace process towards the goal of a comprehensive peace, there were still States in the Middle East which threatened Israel's security and continued to negate its very right to exist.  One of these States, Iraq, had devoted a major part of its vast income from oil to develop weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.  It was in a process of developing these weapons, notwithstanding its ratification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  It has also developed chemical and biological weapons and had used the poison gas it had developed against both its own population and Iran.  Other States in the region had also developed chemical weapons and ballistic missiles armed with chemical warheads, and still continued with these efforts.

Mr. Peleg said that it was against this background and threats that Israel had attempted to fashion its arms control policy.  Israel believed that peace could be durable only if it provided security to both sides.  It envisaged arms control as fundamentally a regional endeavour, incorporating, where feasible, the obligations of international instruments.  Listing steps taken by Israel in its commitment to non-proliferation, he said it had signed the Chemical Weapons Convention but had not yet ratified it; Israel fully supported the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; Israel complied fully with the provisions of the Missile Technology Control Regime although it could not join it technically; Israel was a party to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons; and Israel supported the principle of the register as a confidence building measure of transparency in armaments.

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