‘Issues and Debate at the Conference on Disarmament: A view from Pakistan’

Islamabad:Khalil Hashmi, permanent representative of Pakistan to UN’s European Headquarters in Geneva, has said that primary rationale behind Conference on Disarmament (CD) was to negotiate a Treaty of Nuclear Disarmament, but the indefinite extension of Non-Proliferation Treaty somehow legitimised the possession of nuclear weapons and sowed the seeds of existing stalemate at the CD.

Mr Khalil was addressing a webtalk on “Issues and debate at the Conference on Disarmament: a view from Pakistan” organised here by Institute of Strategic Studies (ISS) here Tuesday.

Enumerating other variables, Mr Khalil said that there is longstanding and well-founded frustration due to non-compliance of legal obligations, lack of forwarding movement on the issue of Negative Security Assurances (NSA), deliberate disregard for established norms of global arms control and disarmament regime, growing mistrust among member states and contest for prioritising the issues among major powers.

He said that from Pakistan’s perspective, the CD does not operate in isolation as it is affected by geopolitical developments at the national and international levels, policy choices of major powers and how the CD members perceive these developments impacting their national security.

Mr Khalil pointed out the CD’s membership and its composition of militarily significant countries, the rules of procedures and mechanisms, the agenda of achieving nuclear disarmament and absence of civil society’s participation are major and constant internal variables that affect CD’s working. He opined that there are ongoing debates regarding further extension of membership, revision of agenda and amendment of rules and procedures. Numerous proposals had been tabled but they did not get much attention, he said.

Underlining external variables, he said that the that the progress at CD in terms of negotiating any treaty is difficult to achieve due to renewed global arms race, doctrinal shifts and growing competition and antagonism among major powers.

He stressed the need to reverse the policies that caused stalemate and revive the old global consensus on the issue of nuclear disarmament. He also drew attention to the integration of artificial intelligence with existing weapons, nanotechnologies, synthetic material, militarisation of cyberspace, hypersonic missile race as matters of serious concern, which must be brought to the CD agenda. However, there is little appetite among major powers to bring them to the agenda, he lamented. Currently, there are no clear solutions and the global landscape for arms control and disarmament is not bright, he said.

Tehmina Janjua, former Foreign Secretary, said that CD should not be seen as ineffective and irrelevant. It is a forum where Pakistan’s views are sought, heard, understood and greatly valued, she said adding that CD is in important strategic forum where Pakistan can bring to attention the security challenges it is facing in the region because of the special treatment given to India. Earlier Aizaz Chaudhary, Director-General, ISS welcomed the participants.