Good afternoon,
Let me make a few remarks on the vote regarding non-proliferation and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in my national capacity.
Switzerland deeply regrets that the Mandate of the Panel of Experts was not renewed due to the use of the veto by the Russian Federation. The panel of experts independently and transparently documents the implementation of sanctions.
Due to the veto exercised today, the panel will not be able to continue its important work, including in documenting apparent violations of the sanctions regime in place. This further increases the suspicions around current and future violations.
The sanctions regime has been established because of the nuclear program of the DPRK, which is in violation of international law and constitutes a threat to international peace and security.
It is the duty of the Security Council to maintain and strengthen the global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime. As a non-nuclear weapon state and strong advocate for disarmament and non-proliferation, my country, Switzerland, expects the Council to continue to maintain this duty faithfully, despite global tensions. Given the veto, the General Assembly will also take up this issue.
The sanctions remain in place. The Committee and the wider membership benefit from independent expert analysis and support in implementing these sanctions. We should therefore seek alternatives to fulfill this need.
We look to Member States, individually or collectively, to support the Committee with information to the best of their abilities.
My role as the chair of the 1718 Committee has become more complicated as the Committee does base its deliberations on the independent high-quality information of the panel. The independence of the Panel has also helped the Chair to keep the discussions focused and constructive. It will therefore become harder to review measures based on developments on the ground – be it efforts to curb sanctions evasion or the processes to facilitate humanitarian cooperation.
But there is no doubt, that we will continue to work hard towards consensus using good sources of information that we can base our discussions on.
Thank you.