Intervention by
Ambassador Makarim WIBISONO

on the issue of FMCT

at the Second Session
of the Preparatory Committee
for the 2000 Review Conference
of the Parties to the Treaty
on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

Geneva, 30 April 1998

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INTERVENTION BY AMBASSADOR MAKARIM WUBISONO
ON THE ISSUE OF FMCT

Mr. Chairman,

The INF Treaty called for the destruction of intermediate range ballistic missiles and it exempted warheads of these missiles. The START treaties called for the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from operational deployment and for the destruction of a limited number of launchers. Hence, these treaties are arms control and not nuclear disarmament Moreover, they permit the two leading nuclear powers to retain and store the warheads of those weapons that were withdrawn and their fissile material as well as thousands of reserve warheads and large stocks of unweaponized fissile material. Those stored materials could at some point be used to rapidly expand deployed weapons. Disarmament requires termination of weapons production and destroying existing weapons.

A sizable number of agreements have been reached which warrant our recognition. Unilaterally, the two governments have dismantled thousands of nuclear warheads for tactical range delivery systems whose withdrawal from operational deployment was earlier agreed upon. But there has been no multilateral verification of this dismantling or what has been done with the tissue materials from those dismantled weapons. An agreement was also reached covering the sale by Russia to the U.S. of enriched uranium. The two governments also moved to a precedent-setting exchange of information on their holdings of nuclear warheads and weapons-grade fissile material. Sometime ago, they also agreed to place part of fissile materials under bilateral monitoring and to cease production, thereby formalizing unilateral decisions.

These are important steps in the right direction. But they do not constitute a process of irreversible nuclear disarmament. For such a process to endure, it is first of all necessary that bilateral agreements aimed at ending the production of fissile materials must be accompanied by arrangements for verification not only by parties immediately concerned but also by relevant existing international mechanism in verification measures. Furthermore, they should agree to turn over fissile materials from dismantled warheads to internationally-monitored storage in order to assure that they will not he reused for weapons. It is equally important to dismantle all warheads that are withdrawn from operational deployment to comply with the START treaties and other agreements. Until these steps are taken, there can be no genuine nuclear disarmament and these are the steps that can and should be taken prior to the convening of the 2000 Review Conference in order to ensure the fulfillment of obligations under Article VI of the NPT.

Other measures that can follow within that timeframe can be summarized as follows:

• taking nuclear forces off alert
• removing warheads from their delivery vehicles
• ending the deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons ending all nuclear testing including simulation
• initiating START In negotiations to further reduce the arsenals
• a "no-first use" commitment among the nuclear-weapon states and a "non-use" international agreement against the non-nuclear weapon states.

In its intervention during general debate, my delegation touched upon the question of a ban on fissile materials. Documents of the United Nations and of other sources show that this issue as well has a long history characterized by resistance to such a ban by some of the nuclear powers with the result that there were no concerted efforts to achieve this objective. Conceptually it has always been seen as an instrument to deal with both vertical and horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons. So there could possibly be no doubt or differing interpretation of the scope of such a ban. It follows logically that any ban should cover not only future but also past production as well as the management of such materials.

As has been rightly observed by many member states, there is no point in continuing to produce what is already available in huge quantities. Therefore, it does not entail any constraints to propose a measure that would have been taken anyway. Furthermore, the ban would apply only for future production, that is, directed at non-proliferation, but no limits would be set on the use of previously produced materials which would not be conducive to further measures to limit and eliminate nuclear armaments.

A cutoff is essentially an interim arrangement which should include a commitment to future negotiations on nuclear disarmament. And it should be stressed that a cutoff, nice the CTBT with its loophole for tests in a laboratory and the indefinitely-extended NPT, would do little more than preserve the nuclear status quo. If they are to endure indefinitely it is essential to "rollback" existing arsenals leading to their eventual elimination. As long as a cutoff is based upon universality and non-discrimination as called for by the United Nations General Assembly and does not deny civilian applications, it can constitute an incremental process of eliminating nuclear armaments.

My delegation believes that the objective of a ban on fissile materials set by the 1995 Review and Extension Conference can be achieved and we should be able to make progress in resolving this question. But it has to be pursued in the context of an agenda for nuclear disarmament and other related nuclear questions such as the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free-zones where they do not exist, consolidation of those that have been created including their inter-relationship and binding security assurances to non-nuclear states. We can then proceed to address many substantive issues including inter alia:

How to deal with the issue of production - both past and future?
Should stocks of materials be declared and limits placed on their uses?
Should continued production be permitted for non-weapons purposes?
What about the verification mechanism of a cutoff agreement?
Will the IAEA be given a role in cutoff verification or another verification mechanism should be devised?

The conclusion of a treaty to ban the use of fissile material for weapons purposes prior to the convening of the 2000 Review Conference would demonstrate in a concrete manner that the nuclear arms race has ceased and that "good faith" negotiations are underway for nuclear disarmament as called for in Article VI of the NPT.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.