Vienna Chapter
Mr. Chairman,
On behalf of State Signatories of the Group of 77 and China, I am
pleased to see you chairing the 17th session of Working Group A and assure
you of our full cooperation. The Group is pleased to welcome Belize,
Cameroon, Central African Republic and Libyan Arab Jamahiriya as new
members.
The Group has agreed to express its views on the following issues
which will be considered during the present meeting of Working Group A.
I. Possible reduction of the annual number of sessions of the
Preparatory Commission from 2003 onwards (CTBT/PTS/INF.483).
Mr. Chairman,
According to the proposal made by the PTS the objective of this
reduction is to reduce the workload of delegations, alleviate the burden
of report writing on PTS staff and allow them more time for practical work
as well as to obtain certain financial savings. The Group considers that
this is a valuable and useful attempt and will approach this request with
the understanding that this will not affect the efficiency of the work of
the PTS and that the process of budget preparation will remain transparent
and State Signatories be provided with sufficient time to give their
guidance on the matter. In this respect the Group is of the opinion that
the proposal to reduce one session of the Prep Com if adopted should be
complemented by the following reductions of its subsidiary bodies;
1. Working Group A sessions should be reduced to two per year, each
of them for a duration of five days, with full interpretation.
2. Working Group B sessions should be maintained at three sessions
per year but their duration reduced to two weeks each. By doing so the
quality of the technical work would not be affected, as is clearly
expressed in the Report of the External Evaluation Team on the
International Monitoring System document CTBT/WGB-17/INF.3. This report
recommends that the meetings of WGB, addressing IMS and IDC matters should
be reduced in frequency, to twice a year.
3. Concerning the Advisory Group, the G-77 and China is of the view
that the current schedule of its meetings should be modified in relation
to the work of Working Group A.
II. Taking into account the actual prospects of entry into force of
the treaty and lessons which might be learned by further work of Prep Com,
the Group believes that discussion on draft rules of procedure for the
future CTBTO is not an urgent need. Therefore the Group proposes the
postponement of this discussion to a later stage.
III. We value the proposal to conclude of an agreement between Prep
Com and the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America
and the Caribbean and encourage similar agreements with other regional
intergovernmental organizations, in particular those useful in promoting
the interests of the Prep Com.
IV. International Cooperation
1. The Group welcomes the status report submitted by Japan as
contained in document CTBT/WGB-17/JP/1. The Group considers that this
initiative will enhance the scope and bring support to the PTS/CTBTO
training programmes for developing countries. In this regard the Group
welcomes the possibility of renewing the programme of the Japanese Agency
for International Cooperation and calls upon the PTS to give further
consideration to this issue. In order to facilitate a broader
participation of State Signatories from developing countries in technical
meetings with experts from capitals, the Group considers that the PTS
could explore mechanisms for financing their participation within
available resources.
Finally, as stated already during last year's April Prep Com, the
Group is of the opinion that the PTS should cooperate with the Member
States in order to identify possible solutions to impediments preventing
them from making their payments, as recommended by the X Prep-Com in
November 1999, including constitutional impediments.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
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