VOA标准英语2008年-UN Secretary General Urges Action to Forestall

In a blunt statement to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, the U.N. Secretary-General urged the 65-member body to start negotiations¹ on a nuclear weapons material treaty.   Ban Ki-moon said the nuclear threat was real and action must be taken to prevent the arms race.  As Lisa Schlein reports for VOA on the secretary-general's speech from Geneva, he is the first U.N. secretary-general to address the yearly opening of the conference, which was established in 1979.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon did not mince² his words.  He told the 65-member Conference on Disarmament (CD) to wake up and get serious about controlling the nuclear threats proliferating³ around the world.

He said a lot was at stake and it was crucial that the CD lived up to its mission of maintaining international peace and security.  And, to do this, he said progress was needed in disarmament negotiations to forestall⁴ arms races.

"And forestalling⁵ arms races calms tensions," Ban said. "By reducing tensions, we free up resources that would have been diverted to armaments.  These resources can then be used to achieve the Millennium⁶ Development Goals." 

The U.N. Millennium Development Goals aim to cut poverty in half by 2015.

Secretary-General Ban spoke⁷ about the gravity of threats facing the world and scolded the delegates before him for doing nothing to break the impasse⁸ that has stalled vital negotiations for years. 

The Conference on Disarmament is the world's sole multilateral forum⁹ for disarmament negotiations.  For the past few years it has been paralyzed by its inability to agree on a work agenda. 

Differences among the United States, Russia, China and other countries have prevented negotiations on a nuclear material treaty that would ban the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium used to make nuclear bombs.  Some of these countries refuse to start negotiations on these materials without simultaneously¹⁰ starting talks on other issues.

Ban told the U.N. body a treaty would advance nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation objectives.

"In making this call, I am not at all discounting the importance of preventing an arms race in outer space, or negative security assurances, or nuclear disarmament per se," he said. "Just the opposite; these are all perennial¹¹ and very important issues before the conference.  You must decide how to organize your treatment of these issues without holding any of them hostage to the others." 

The U.N. chief reassured¹² the Conference on Disarmament that it had not lost its relevance¹³.  But, he warned it was in danger of losing its way.