ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

Permanent Mission to the United Nations

622 Third Avenue. New York, NY 10017. Tel. (212) 687-2020. Fax (212) 867-7086~ E-mail iran~ix.netcom.com

P R E S S S E C T ION

Statement by H.E. Dr. M. Javad Zarif,
Deputy Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran
at the ₃rd Preparatory Committee of Year 2000 NPT Review Conference

New York, May 10, 1999

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Mr. Chairman,

Let me at the outset congratulate you Mr. Chairman on your assumption of the Chairmanship of the Third Session of the Preparatory Committee for the NPT 2000 Review Conference. I am sure that your experience and diplomatic skill would help the committee to successfiilly complete its work.

This meeting ,Mr. Chairman, is expected to be difficult and very decisive. It is actually convened at the tiine when nuclear non-proliferation regime faces serious challenges. The challenges that if not reasonably contained could undermine the NPT as the basic international, political and legal foundation to ban the spread of nuclear weapons. The nuclear tests in South Asia, and consequently the on-gomg arms race in the Subcontinent, is putting a serious question as to the effectiveness of the NPT, demonstrating the need for launching collective efforts to salvage the credibility of the NPT regime.

This meeting is also critically important since it has inherited a lull range of unresolved issues, both substantive and pr~cedural, from the previous meeting which due to the objection of some to the reflection of the important issue of implementation of the Resolution on the Middle East in the declaration, could not produce a final document. This meeting which is to be the last session of the Prepcom has the great responsibility of finalizing its considerations of all agenda items including its substantive recommendations on major issues.

I believe every delegation should strive in earnest to make this session a success. This requeres frank and straight-forward deliberations, sufficient clarity as to the scope of the work here and flexibility.and mutual understanding of the concerns and positions of member-states.

The key element to success, Mr. Chairman, is to continue to stick to the basic framework which was agreed upon through painstaking negotiations in 1995 and are, in fact, part and parcel of the decision to extend the Treaty indefinitely. We can understand that some do not prefer or even dislike some of the decisions taken there, but this can not justif~r the position to ignore them or oppose their reflection in the Prepcom documents. This attitude was mainly responsible for the deadlock of the negotiations in the Second Prepcom, and we are frankly concerned that persistence in the same attitude may indeed lead to another failure here.

All member-states should abide by all provisions of the Treaty as well as the agreements reached in 1995, those which are reflected in the Declaration of Principles and Objectives, document on strengtheriing the review process and the resolution on the Middle East. We should try, in fact, to build the structure and substance of our work upon principles embodied in those three basic documents.

The P&O Declaration has set a very precise plan of action for fbthering the nuclear disrrmament agenda with three priorities: conclusion of the CTBT, commencement and conclusion of negotiations to ban fissile materials for weapon purposes and systematic nuclear disarmament. Provision of sufficient assurances to the Non-Nuclear-Weapon States parties to the NPT against the threat or use of nuclear weapons, upholding the authority of the IAEA, ensuring peacelul use of nuclear energy, prohibition of attacks against safeguarded nuclear facilities, and the call for transparency in the export control regime with the participation of all interested states have been among other principles and guidelines.

Basically this meeting ~ould elaborate and lurther the measures which have been or need to be taken to implement the principles. This account of the accomplishments and progress should be of course duly reflected in the report of the Prepcom and should take the form of the Prepcom recommendations to the Review Conference.

This brings us to the question of scope of the Prepcom mandate, a question which has been defined in documents on the strengthened review process. in that document there are provisions which clearly stipulate that apart from the routine lunctions which Prepcom sessions are logically entrusted with, which are generally procedural preparations for the review conferences, this strengthened review process as the name may indicate should consider principles, objectives and ways in order to promote the lull implementation of the Treaty, as well as its universality, and to make recommendations thereon to the review conference. Therefore, a main part of work in the Prepcom should be allocated to drafling substantive recommendations on promoting the implementation and universality of the Treaty within the framework of the P&O Declaration.

The resolution on the Middle East was also the product of intensive negotiations in 1995 and I believe no controversy exists as to the critical importance of this resolution and the fact that adoption of this resolution was a decisive factor in allowing the treaty be extended permanently. This resolution which both is related to the implementation as well as universality of the Treaty should be therefore a main focus of this Prepcom.

The international community for a long tiine has expressed its grave concern over the nuclear weapons program of Israel. laraeli clandestine nuclear activities have endangered peace and secwity and have undermined the credibility of the NPT in the region. This Prepcom is highly expected, in pursuing the principles elaborated and envisaged in 1995, to send a strong message to the Israel that its belligerent policy can not be tolerated and that it should submit itself to the global demand of acceding to the NPT and placing all its nuclear facilities under the IAEA safeguards.

Mr. Chairman;

Resolution of outstanding procedural issues which remain pending are directly related to the substantive part of our work. On draft rules of procedure of the conference, proposals have been made to provide the possibility to establish working groups alongside the main committees "for a focused consideration of speci~c issues relevant to the Treaty" in accordance with paragraph 6 of Decision on strengthening the review process. In this context, the Non-Aligned Heads of States and governments in their Summit held in Durban in 1998 have called for the establishment of two working groups on nuclear disarmament and on the Middle East Resolution. I hope that this request which is in accordance with the 1995 Conference decision, be positively considered and recommended to the Review Conference. This structure would allow for a better concentration on issues of highest importance.

Nuclear disarmament certanly is a flindamental issue and needs to be thoroughly discussed and reviewed. The P&O Declaration has identified the issue as a real priority and the ICJ in its advisory opinion has established this goal as a legal obligation. Since 1995, developments have taken place and new initiatives have been presented.

The group of Non-Aligned in the CD crafted a plan of action with time frames for nuclear disarmament which is a valuable and pragmatic work. UNGA Resolutions have also set guidelines to pursue nuclear disarmament with utmost priority. The NGO community has also invested so much energy for providing a practical plan for total elimination, and I seize this opportunity to extend my sincere gratitude to all of them. These initiatives including ,inter alia, conclusion of a legally binding instrument to ban the production of new warheads under an international control mechanism, commencement of~gotiations on a treaty constraining or prohibiting tactical nuclear weapons, commitment not to deploy nuclear weapons in other Non-Nuclear-Weapon States, dealerting and separating launcher and warhead, and application of some transparency measures such as nuclear weapons registry, along with other proposals needs to be seriously discussed. The establishment of a working group would best provide a suitable forum to review nuclear disarmament in a more focused manner.

Furthermore, the resolution on the Middle East due to its vital political importance and sensitivity needs to be also discussed within a separate mechanism to provide for better structured deliberations on an issue which is related to the univeraality of the Treaty. Consequently the suggestion that a background documentation be prepared on implementation of the Middle East Resolution could contribute very positively to the substantive discussions in the Group.

Mr. Chairman; Ladies and Gentlemen

This conference has before it a difficult agenda to consider and has also to make important decisions which are pending for a along time. Time is short and enough time should be allocated to the most relevant issues. Discussions which are not urgent can be postponed to a more appropnate time. We should not for example open a substantive discussions on compilation of specific proposals which can be considered by the Review Conference itself.

This committee should concentrate on final drafting of its own recommendations to the 2000 Conference and to formulate proper decisions for other agenda items. I believe however that it would be very much appropriate to discuss flirther on the structure of the 2000 NPT Final Declaration which facilitates the discussions in the Conference. As you may have inferred from my statement, I am of the view that the Final Declaration should be consisting of two main sections. First section should review the implementation of the treaty on the article by article basis and the second section updates Principles and Objectives based on the new developments in the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation sphere. This in fact is consistent with the document on Strengthened Review Process which demands that the Review Conference should look forward as well as back.

In our view the Prepcom should not allocate much of its precious time to a long and generaldebate type cluster discussions, while so important agenda items most directly linked to the work of the conference are still pending. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, a different approach is needed in order to ensure successlul completion of the tasks before this important session. We should concentrate on the areas of differences and I believe when there is a will to resolve the issues we will succeed.