11th U.N. disarmament confab closes in Kyoto

July 30 Kyodo - A U.N.-sponsored disarmament conference ended Friday in Kyoto after four days of intense debates by 60 experts and government officials from 24 countries on global security concerns and disarmament strategy for the next decade.

Tsutomu Ishiguri, head of the U.N. Regional Center for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific, called the reports delivered by participants, who attended in a personal capacity, ''useful and valuable documents'' in discussing future disarmament issues.

The participants also pronounced the 11th U.N. Conference on Disarmament Issues a success in providing a forum for free and active debate among officials, academics and representatives of nongovernmental organizations about problems posed by nuclear weapons.

Ishiguri, who chaired the conference, emphasized a need, however, to revise principles and objectives that govern the nuclear disarmament regime at next year's review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The NPT is aimed at keeping the number of countries with nuclear weapons to the five that possessed such weapons before 1967 -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China.

Having initially come into force in 1970 for a period of 25 years, it was extended indefinitely in 1995 and has since achieved near-universality, with more than 180 states becoming party to it. The review of progress on its provisions is set every five years, with the next one scheduled for 2000.

Some countries, particularly India, have long dismissed the NPT as a double standard because it allows the five recognized nuclear powers to maintain nuclear arsenals while denying such weapons to other countries.

Sessions over the four days covered such areas as promoting peace and security in the Asia-Pacific, finding ways to achieve stability and cooperation in Northeast Asia and disarmament and nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and missiles.

Summarizing the session on Northeast Asia, Choi Kang, senior director for policy planning at South Korea's National Security Council, said nonpolitical and nonmilitary approaches are necessary in promoting security dialogues in the region.

Kusuma Snitwongse, head of the advisory board of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, painted a gloomy picture on the priority issues of disarmament in the next decade.

Snitwongse said that although the debate focused on nuclear disarmament, many participants appeared to have believed that the nuclear disarmament process is stagnating and even worsening.

At a concluding news conference, Evgeniy Gorkovsky, deputy director of the U.N. Department of Disarmament Affairs, tried to inject some optimism, praising the quality of debate on a proposal made by a Japan-initiated international forum of experts.

The proposal compiled by the Tokyo Forum at its final session Sunday urged the United States and Russia to reduce their strategic nuclear arsenal to 1,000 warheads each.

Japan has hosted all 10 past sessions of the annual conference since it was established in 1989 under an initiative made by then Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita during a 1988 special U.N. General Assembly session on disarmament.

Picture Caption: The U.N. conference on disarmament issues in Kyoto closed after 4-days session discussing the way toward the nuclear disarmament. (The National Kyoto int'l Center)
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