Mr. President,

At the outset, India would like to express its deepest condolences on the sad demise of Ambassador Yukia Amano, the late Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency.  We have lost a great leader in him, whose contributions will be remembered for all time to come. 

I thank you for organizing the thematic debate on the agenda item relating to the cessation of nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament.  I also wish to thank the distinguished panelists for their presentations. 

I would like to reiterate India’s commitment to the goal of universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable nuclear disarmament.  India’s support for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons is consistent with the highest priority to the goal of nuclear disarmament agreed by consensus in the final document of the First Special Session of the General Assembly on Disarmament. 

India has made several proposals to achieve this goal including a set of proposals contained in a Working Paper on Nuclear Disarmament in the Conference on Disarmament as contained in CD/1816.  One of the proposals in this Working Paper is to undertake negotiation in the Conference on Disarmament of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, prohibiting the development, production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons and on their destruction leading to the global, non-discriminatory and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons with a specified time-frame.  These proposals remain as relevant and valid today.

As to the issue of nuclear testing, India remains committed to maintaining a unilateral and voluntary moratorium on nuclear explosive testing.

However, I must emphasize that while conveniently resurrected from time to time, the concept of regional strategic stability can never be a viable alternative to global strategic stability.  It is well recognized that the security concerns of relevant countries are global in nature and are not limited to a specific geographical region in which they are located.  Any side tracking into so-called regional approaches will only distract us from the main goal of global elimination of nuclear weapons, and we can only do so at our peril.

Thank you.