67TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
First Committee (Disarmament and International Security)

General debate on all disarmament and international security agenda items(items 86 to 102)

Statement by Minister Mateo ESTRÉMÉ
Chargé d ’Affaires a.i. of the Argentine Republic to the United Nations

The Republic of Argentina has traditionally favoured addressing the issue of nuclear disarmament as a priority and has made great efforts in this area, reflecting a clear and sustained commitment to disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation. At the same time, Argentina has maintained a vigorous nuclear program exclusively for peaceful purposes, thereby producing, using and exporting nuclear energy, under the strictest respect for the provisions enshrined in the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Argentina has been developing peaceful nuclear activities for over sixty years, in accordance with the highest safety standards. Having been the first Latin American country to operate a nuclear power plant, Argentina has already opened its third nuclear plant.

Argentina welcomes and shares the emphasis on safe and responsible management of nuclear materials and equipment, so we underscore the Nuclear Security Summit that was held in Seoul in 2012. In this regard, I would like to emphasize that Argentina has successfully completed the process of reducing the use of highly enriched uranium in research reactors, and is the first country that bases its entire production of radioisotopes in LEU.

Argentina also attaches a central importance to the cooperation in all peaceful applications of nuclear energy, so it is always open to continue working bilaterally or in the framework of the IAEA to share its expertise in the many peaceful benefits of this type of energy.
The year 2011 marked the 20th anniversary of the signing of the agreement between Argentina and Brazil on the exclusively peaceful use of nuclear energy, which created a bilateral system of accounting and control of nuclear materials and established a bilateral agency for its implementation. The Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) is unique in the world and strengthens the guarantees of nuclear facilities in both countries.
With regard to non-proliferation, Argentina understands that the challenges that the international community faces today in this area would surely find more effective responses if the nuclear-weapon States demonstrated their willingness to the complete elimination of these weapons. Argentina considers that the nuclear arsenals in the hands of these States continue to have an overwhelming size and constitute the greatest threat to collective security and to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
In this regard, Argentina wishes to reiterate the call to the States that have not yet signed or ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear- Test-Ban Treaty, in particular those listed in its Annex 2 , to take the necessary steps to do so, in order for the CTBT regime to start functioning as soon as possible. In addition, my delegation believes that the CD has an urgent and pending negotiating task: a Treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and other nuclear devices, as well as an instrument on negative security assurances.

In this context, Argentina reiterates its support to any measure that promotes the complete elimination of nuclear weapons under the principles of transparency, irreversibility and verification of nuclear disarmament measures. As a State Party of the first nuclear-weapon-free zone established in a densely populated geographical area, reiterates its call on States that have made interpretative declarations to the Additional Protocols to the Treaty of Tlatelolco to withdraw them in accordance with the purpose of the treaty.

Mr. President,
In 1978, the First Special Session of the General Assembly devoted to Disarmament concluded a comprehensive consensual disarmament strategy and ratified the central role and primary responsibility of the United Nations in the field of disarmament.
Several years ago the international community started a process of reflection on the causes of stagnation of both the Conference on Disarmament and the rest of the disarmament machinery of the United Nations, as well as possible solutions to overcome it. From that exercise of analysis, it is clear that the problems of the Conference on Disarmament to resume its substantive work come mainly from outside that forum, and that while it is possible to improve the working methods of the Conference, renewed political will is needed to make concrete progress. Therefore, Argentina considers that it is still possible to revitalize the bodies dealing with disarmament and it is not indispensable, in this instance, to conduct negotiation processes outside the Conference on Disarmament.
In this context, Argentina welcomes the adoption of a program of work for the three-year cycle of the Disarmament Commission and the inclusion of two substantive issues. Let me, at this stage, acknowledge the efforts of the President of the Commission, Ambassador Enrique Román-Morey, to achieve this result. In this regard, Argentina understands that in order for the Commission to do its work efficiently and adopt recommendations on the two agenda items, States must demonstrate the necessary political will.
Mr. President,
In the field of conventional weapons, Argentina welcomes the positive results achieved in the Second Review Conference of the Programme of Action to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects. In that sense, I would like to stress the importance of including a gender and age perspective in the implementation of the Programme of Action. The adoption of a schedule of meetings for the 2012-2018 cycle will allow for the clear differentiation of the mandates of the various types of meetings and the selection of specific topics for each one of them to improve their effectiveness.

At the same time, my delegation regrets that it was not possible to reach an agreement on the inclusion of issues that would have allowed to consider the illicit trade in SALW truly "in all its aspects", such as ammunitions and explosives, which are of great importance for our region.
Mr. President,
For more than a decade the need to have multilaterally negotiated rules to introduce predictability to the transfer of conventional weapons and to make them according to the principles of existing international law has been internationally reocgnized. This need arises from a variety of reasons, among which the misuse of weapons against the rules of international humanitarian law and human rights, and the risk of its diversion to terrorist or criminal groups stand out.
Thus, Argentina considers that it is necessary to have an international instrument establishing common rules to identify what factors and circumstances States should take into account when assessing authorizations of transfers of conventional weapons, in order to prevent their diversion to unauthorized uses or users under international law. In this regard, Argentina considers that it is important to conclude the work of the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty and that these negotiations take place at the United Nations. Along with the co-authors, Argentina will submit a draft resolution on the Arms Trade Treaty and will work to have a multilateral, open and transparent exercise to achieve its conclusion. In this regard, my delegation believes that a robust and effective Arms Trade Treaty will complement the provisions of the Programme of Action with regard to the control of international transfers.

Mr. President,
As my delegation has traditionally done, during this session, we will submit the draft resolution on "Information on confidence-building measures in the field of conventional arms", whose main objective is to promote the adoption of measures to foster confidence in the field of conventional arms, encouraging dialogue about them and strengthening knowledge about existing measures in different fora through the voluntary provision of information.

In 2011, for the first time, the Secretary-General submitted a report on the subject, in which he presents a statistical analysis of the information received from Member States between 2005 and 2011. In this sense, the report analyses the information on confidence- building measures provided in national reports and identifies possible trends in their application.

Among its conclusions and recommendations, the report highlights that the information provided by States shows that confidence-building measures can significantly contribute to strengthening international peace, security and stability. In this regard, the report notes that some States have indicated that they considered appropriate that the United Nations acts as depository of such measures.
It also recognizes that most of the confidence- building measures to which Member States made reference in their reports are the result of agreements at the regional, subregional or bilateral levels. In this regard, the report underlines that the variety of these measures highlights the importance of having them adapted to the specific security concerns of the States of a region or subregion.
My delegation hopes that this new draft resolution on the matter can be adopted without a vote, as has been the case in previous sessions.
Mr. President,
In conclusion, let me assure you of the full cooperation of my delegation in promoting an open dialogue that allows to forge the necessary understandings for this session of the First Committee to conclude its work successfully.