Mr. President,

India would like to congratulate you on assumption of the Presidency of the Conference on Disarmament.  We are particularly pleased to see Vietnam preside this august body, a fellow G-21 country and a country with which India enjoys close bilateral relations.  While we welcome you, we take this opportunity to thank Ambassador Valero of Venezuela, as the outgoing President, for having successfully steered our work for the past month.

May I also welcome our newest colleague Ambassador Hussain Al Khateeb of Iraq.  We look forward to working with him. 

We had the privilege of listening to the distinguished Secretary General of ASEAN, H.E. Dato Lim Jock Hoi, and would like to thank him for his remarks.  India is a close strategic partner of ASEAN and last year India commemorated 25 years of the ASEAN-India Dialogue Partnership.  India has been working actively with ASEAN in various forums including in the ASEAN Regional forum, ADMM+ and the East Asia Summit, with focus on international disarmament and security issues which are also related to our work here in the Conference.  Secretary General outlined various multilateral efforts undertaken by the ASEAN to promote and strengthen disarmament and international security.  India has been working with ASEAN in a number of areas mentioned by him and will continue to do so in our collective pursuit for international peace and security.

We welcome your intent to focus on the Programme of Work and your efforts in this direction.  It indeed is incumbent on the President to draw the Programme of Work under Rule 29 of the Rules of Procedure.  We have a good basis to work on, thanks to the valuable work undertaken earlier this year by the former Presidencies.  We look forward to receiving the draft Programme of Work and working with you and fellow member States to enable you to forge consensus in order to adopt the Programme of Work.

In concluding, I take this opportunity to reassure you of India’s full cooperation and support for your efforts to advance our substantive work and bring the CD back to its mandate of negotiating legally binding instruments on the core issues of the CD.

Thank you.