Reemphasise Efforts To Nuclear Weapons Disarment, International Community Told

KUALA LUMPUR, May 5 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has called on the international community to re-emphasise on the efforts to disarmament and eliminate nuclear weapons in total. Malaysia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Ramlan Ibrahim said that despite the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons has long been envisioned, there was too little progress made to decrease the number of nuclear weapons. He said the continued existence of the nuclear weapon stockpiles to this day greatly endangered the non-proliferation goal of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). "We have witnessed how states have foregone their commitments to the Treaty in order to pursue a nuclear weapons ambition, fuelled by the false hope of security and power that these weapons possess," he said at the UN's Main Committee 1 of the 2015 Review Conference of The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in New York, Monday. His text of speech was sent to Bernama, here, Tuesday. He also reiterated Malaysia's commitment on the complete disarmament of weapons of mass destruction and that the goal should be achieved through the multilateral process. Meanwhile, speaking at the Main Committee 2 of the 2015 NPT Review Conference on the same day, Ramlan said Malaysia was firmly committed to its obligations towards non-proliferation, and would continue to hold up its part of the bargain. He pointed out that while there were more successes and tangible progress made to nuclear non-proliferation, less successes were achieved under the disarmament pillar. "As such, we find it inconsistent, to say the least, that Non-Nuclear-Weapons-States Parties continue to be held against increasingly higher non-proliferation standards by the Nuclear-Weapons-States Parties, whether in the Treaty or outside this process," he said. On the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ramlan said Malaysia reaffirmed the agency's role and contribution in establishing and promulgating effective safeguards and verification mechanism for peaceful uses of nuclear energy. "In this regard, we are of the view that the IAEA Secretariat should be provided with the necessary resources and space, to discharge its mandated activites in an effective and objective manner," he added. --BERNAMA