India is not participating in the first UN conference in more than 20 years on a global nuclear weapons ban which opened here amid objections from major nuclear powers.
More than 120 nations in October last year voted on a UN General Assembly resolution to convene the conference to negotiate a legally binding treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.
Britain, France, Israel, Russia and the US voted no, while China, India and Pakistan abstained from voting on that resolution.
The first substantive session of the conference began here yesterday.
India’s stance
In its Explanation of Vote (EoV) given for its abstention on the resolution in October, India had said that it was “not convinced” that the proposed conference could address the longstanding expectation of the international community for a comprehensive instrument on nuclear disarmament.
India also maintained that the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament (CD) is the single multilateral disarmament negotiation forum.
It had further said that it supports the commencement of negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament on a Comprehensive Nuclear Weapons Convention, which in addition to prohibition and elimination also includes verification.
It had said that international verification was essential to the global elimination of nuclear weapons, India feels that the current process does not include the verification aspect.
In line with its position that India articulated in the EoV, India has decided not to participate in the current conference that will run through March 31. It will, however, continue to follow the developments in the event.
Protesting nations
The US, France and the UK led a group of over 40 nations that are strongly protesting the UN talks.
The US’ envoy to the UN Nikki Haley said the Assembly “suddenly” wants to have a hearing to ban nuclear weapons and while as a mother and daughter, she wants a world with no nuclear weapons, one also has to be “realistic”.
She said given the current times “bad actors” cannot be allowed to keep their nuclear weapons while other nations try to maintain peace and safety. “We would love to have a ban on nuclear weapons but in this day and time we cannot honestly say that we can protect our people by allowing the bad actors to have them (nuclear weapons) and those of us who are good trying to keep the peace and safety not to have them,” Haley told reporters.
Haley, joined by UK’s Ambassador to the UN Matthew Rycroft and her French counterpart Frans Delattre, spoke just before the General Assembly convened its first substantive session of the conference. “We have to be realistic. Is there anyone who believes that North Korea would agree to a ban on nuclear weapons? So what you would see is that the General Assembly would go through, in good faith, trying to do something but North Korea would be the one cheering and all of us and the people we represent would be the ones at risk,” she said.
She said Washington believes in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and had reduced its weapons by 85 per cent since the treaty went into place.
She added that while the US would want to see a world without nuclear weapons, the time for it is not today and it will defend its citizens as well as its friends and allies. “One day we will hope we no longer need nuclear weapons. But today, in this day and time, in the situations that we are in, we unfortunately don’t have the ability to do that,” she said.
Rycroft said his country was not participating in the talks “because we do not believe that those negotiations will lead to effective progress on global nuclear disarmament”.
At the start of the conference, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Kim Won-soo highlighted that creating a world free of such weapons is a common obligation of all States — both nuclear and non-nuclear — and called for their inclusive engagement. “Let us all work harder and more creatively, so that we can achieve our common goal of a world, safer and more secure, without nuclear weapons, and better for all,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, he also expressed hope that the instrument will also strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and advance the world closer to the total elimination of nuclear weapons and that it would make important contribution to nuclear disarmament and to the ultimate objective of general and complete disarmament.
Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations Office in Geneva Elayne Whyte G is presiding over the conference. It is taking place in the context of an absence of concrete outcomes from two decades of multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations within the framework of the United Nations.
The UN said the conference represents the first multilateral negotiations on nuclear disarmament at the United Nations in more than 20 years.
As of 2016, it is estimated that more than 15,000 nuclear warheads remain in global stockpiles. The world body said in a statement that while that represents a considerable reduction from the inventories maintained during the cold war, there has been growing frustration in recent years over the declining pace of reductions, continued reliance on nuclear weapons in security doctrines and continuing programmes to modernise and improve nuclear weapons.
“Supporters of a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons consider that it would be an interim or partial step towards nuclear disarmament because it would not include measures for elimination — matters that would be left for future negotiations. Rather, it would be aimed at contributing to the progressive stigmatisation of nuclear weapons,” the UN statement said.