Mr. President,

It gives us great pleasure to see you presiding over our august assembly today. The Secretary-General, in his Millennium Report, urged us to identify ways to eliminate nuclear dangers of all kinds. As we focus our minds during these few days on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), we hope that we will indeed move closer to, and not further away from, our ultimate goal of a world free from nuclear weapons.

Today, more than 55 years have passed since the world witnessed the horrific destruction of the first nuclear weapon explosions. The Cold War has ended and traditional military doctrines involving the use of such weapons have been revised. In the aftermath of September 11, our attention focused on other areas such as Weapons of Mass Terror and the need to improve homeland security. Nonetheless, we should not forget that the threat of nuclear destruction has not abated. Nuclear weapons, with their sheer destructive power coupled with the potential for nuclear fallout, are arguably the only weapons capable of annihilating all humanity. Some reports estimate that more than 30,000 nuclear weapons exist today, with many of them placed on hair-trigger alert. Evidently, nuclear annihilation continues to be a part of our disarmament vocabulary and a part of our collective consciousness. The implications are clear. Nuclear danger cannot be ignored.

Last year, the NPT Review Conference agreed on the importance and urgency of states' signature and ratification of the CTBT, without delay and without conditions, as well as a moratorium on nuclear test explosions pending its entry into force. In the same spirit, states were encouraged to pursue, as a matter of priority, the early entry into force of the CTBT and its universal acceptance. Disarmament experts have often declared the central importance of the NPT as a cornerstone of global disarmament. In our view, the CTBT is no less important for it plays an essential, complementary role to the NPT by ensuring that vertical nuclear proliferation does not take place even as we seek to stop horizontal proliferation. Such universal, multilateral regimes are critical to addressing the threat of nuclear danger.

As a small nation, which has consistently supported the rule of law in international affairs, Singapore will do its part. We ratified the NPT in 1976 and was one of the signatory parties of the 1995 Bangkok Treaty which established a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in Southeast Asia. In 1999, we signed the CTBT in recognition of its significance as a key pillar of nuclear non-proliferation. And we are pleased to announce that Singapore has just deposited our instrument of ratification, thus becoming the 85t State Party to the CTBT.

Mr. President,

In addition to encouraging universal adherence to the CTBT, we must also recognize that the successful implementation of the treaty depends on the effectiveness of its monitoring and verification regime. Indeed, the ultimate value of the CTBT would hinge on the robustness of its mechanism for detecting violations and preventing cheating. In this regard, we welcome the progress in establishing the International Monitoring System (IMS) and we look forward to the eventual completion of the full network of all 337 monitoring facilities.

Likewise, there is a need to guard against any backsliding which could negate all the painstaking progress the international community has achieved to date. For instance, any repudiation or abrogation of the CTBT, or a lapse in the global moratorium` against nuclear testing, will do untold damage to the treaty regime. Already, there are troubling signs of such inclinations, which could spark off a renewed global arms race. Moreover, the impact of such actions may not be confined solely to the CTBT. Disarmament regimes rarely exist in a vacuum. In the case of the CTBT and the NPT, they are fundamentally linked. The NPT Preamble recalls the determination "to seek to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time and to continue negotiations to this end." Clearly, there is a compact established here between pursuing nuclear non-proliferation on the one hand and stopping nuclear testing on the other. This reciprocal understanding is a key element of the NPT commitment towards cessation of a nuclear arms race.

Given these realities, the Nuclear Weapon States, who bear a special responsibility, should exercise all caution to avoid upsetting the delicate balance. Otherwise, the consequences may be grim. If the CTBT process breaks down, we may, to borrow a nuclear analogy, trigger off a chain reaction leading to an erosion of the NPT's credibility and a weakening of states' commitment to the NPT. That, Mr. President, would be a most regrettable outcome which is in no-one's interest.

With that in mind, allow me to conclude by relating a story told by the Ancients, of Sisyphus, a man cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill only to helplessly watch it roll back to the bottom whenever he was near the summit. He was condemned to forever repeat this cycle of futile endeavor. We would do well to avoid the fate of Sisyphus by not allowing the CTBT to unravel just as we are on the threshold of success. Let us summon up the collective political will to progressively free the world from nuclear danger.

Thank you.
 
 

Sources

• http://www.un.org/webcast/ctbt/statements/singaporeE.htm