I share the concern of the UN Secretary-General regarding the unravelling of key international arms control agreements. As I said in my address to the Conference on Disarmament in February 2019, the urgency of the issues we are confronted with cannot be understated. We face the possibility of a new arms race; the development of new weapons that could lower the threshold for use of nuclear weapons; and modernisation programmes that take us further away from the promise of nuclear disarmament enshrined in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In particular, the announcements by the United States and the Russian Federation that they are suspending their obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty are deeply worrying. Throughout its 30-year history, the INF has resulted in the removal and verifiable destruction of almost three thousand missiles with nuclear and conventional warheads. As Secretary-General Guterres noted in his address to the Conference on Disarmament, “we must take great care to preserve our existing frameworks”. Ireland has consistently called for the US and Russia to address their concerns within the parameters of the Treaty, and I hope that every effort will be made to preserve the Treaty in the time remaining.
Recent challenges to the INF Treaty have also raised concerns for other disarmament and non-proliferation instruments, including the negotiations on NEW START. Ireland strongly supports early negotiations on the extension of this important arms control mechanism.
I support UN Secretary-General Guterres’ efforts to restore disarmament to its central role in building international peace and security. In my address to the Conference on Disarmament in February this year, I announced that Ireland will champion the implementation of three key actions of the UN Secretary-General’s Agenda for Disarmament: including the action on facilitating dialogue for nuclear disarmament.
My Department has regular, constructive contacts with the US Administration both through our Embassy and Mission network in the US and through the US Embassy here in Dublin. As part of regular Government engagement in the US, the Taoiseach travelled to Washington DC for the St Patrick’s Day programme, which included a range of engagements with the US Administration and other political leaders. While those meetings, and all contacts at Ministerial and official level, cover a range of issues of on-going mutual interest, as well as foreign policy issues, disarmament issues were not discussed on this occasion.
