North Korea’s role in the disarmament conference “emphasizes the irrelevance of the conference,” according to Marc Finaud, an expert at the Geneva Center for Security Policy.
In Geneva a meeting of the International Conference on Disarmament is under way, which has shocked both the participating countries and a number of NGOs.
The reason for the shock is that North Korea will hold a disarmament conference next month: the same country that has recently reported to have tested an intercontinental ballistic missile and suspected of preparing nuclear weapons tests.
The rise of North Korea to the Conference on Disarmament is due to a purely technical reason. The Conference Chair will be replaced by each of its 65 member countries, in alphabetical order.
North Korea, officially called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, followed Cuba on the list.
North Korea representative at the conference, diplomat Han Tae-song in his speech, he asserted that his country was “committed to promoting global peace and disarmament” and that North Korea attaches great importance to the work of the conference.
At the same time, of course, Han made it clear that it was not interested in criticizing the country. Han said North Korea is still at war with the United States because no formal peace deal has ever been reached since the Korean War.
“No country has the right to criticize or interfere in our national defense policy,” he said.
About At the meeting, 50 members of the conference made clear their dismay that North Korea will lead the conference in the coming weeks, according to AFP news agency. NGOs had demanded representatives of the countries to walk out of the meeting, but this did not happen.
Instead, several countries sent their lower-level diplomats to the meeting, including an Australian representative Amanda Gorely in his speech, North Korea’s actions “seriously undermine the significance of the conference.”
Of course, the conference has also succeeded in weakening its importance through its own activities. CNN points outthat the conference has not reached significant agreements since 1996 and that expectations for this meeting were already very low in principle.
“This only underlines the insignificance of the Conference on Disarmament,” said an expert from the Geneva Center for Security Policy Marc Finaud said to CNN.
Disarmament Conference is not an official UN council, but works closely with the UN, meets at UN headquarters in Geneva and reports annually to the UN General Assembly.
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