Washington, June 25: The world’s only multilateral disarmament negotiating forum is on the brink of reaching consensus on who should shepherd talks on fissile material and other topics, diplomats said on Thursday.
Argentina’s Roberto Garcia Moritan, who is currently president of the Conference on Disarmament, said momentum was growing in the 65-member body which last month ended a decade of stalemale and set out a work plan for 2009.
“There is a clear and widespread determination and willingness to work, which needs to be urgently put into action,” he told a plenary session, formally proposing a list of candidates to lead talks in seven key areas.
Despite “minor outstanding details”, he said he expected formal consensus within, echoing comments from other diplomats.
China and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed, have raised minor objections to the list, diplomats said. Consultations were being held to overcome remaining differences, they added.
China’s delegation said in a speech on Thursday that it needed to consult with Beijing, but the four other official nuclear powers (Britain, France, Russia and the United States) made statements voicing support for the list of candidates.
Talks on prohibiting production of nuclear bomb-making fissile material (highly enriched uranium and plutonium) are seen as the top priority. But they are sensitive due to issues including whether a future treaty should cover existing stocks and include a verification mechanism to check against cheating.
This has led some Western diplomats to fear that an emerging consensus over the geographically balanced envoys could unravel and delay work at the U.N.-sponsored talks.
“Everybody knows Pakistan wasn’t ready to support it,” a diplomatic source told Reuters after Thursday’s session.
“Pakistan wanted to demonstrate that there are rules of procedure and ways to slow things down,” he said. “We hope it can be approved on Friday and that next week we actually begin substantive work.” A plenary is set for Friday at 0800 GMT.
Juerg Streuli, the Swiss disarmament ambassador, has been proposed to head the fissile negotiations, while Indonesian ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani would lead talks on halting the nuclear arms race.
Brasil’s envoy Luiz Filipe de Macedo Soares would chair talks on preventing an arms race in outer space and Ukraine’s ambassador Mykola Maimeskul would head talks on assuring non-nuclear weapon states they would not be attacked.
Special coordinators would also be named in three areas: new weapons of mass destruction (Zimbabwe); comprehensive programme of disarmament (Mexico) and transparency in armaments (Finland).
The Conference on Disarmament, which takes all decisions by consensus, has not agreed any pacts since its global treaties banning chemical weapons and underground nuclear blasts in the 1990s.
Its members include the five official nuclear weapon powers — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — as well as nuclear-capable India and Pakistan, and Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arms.
North Korea, which has test-fired missiles and conducted a nuclear test, is also a member and has threatened to block consensus as a result of criticism from Japan and South Korea.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday said that North Korea’s nuclear programme posed a danger to the United States and the Korean Peninsula.
—Agencies