OREANDA-NEWS. May 6, 2009. The 2009 session of the UN Disarmament Commission was held in New York from April 13 to May 1. Its chief outcome was agreement on an agenda for the next three-year cycle, allowing for in-depth consideration of the key issues of disarmament, nonproliferation and arms control involving all UN member states.

The session met to deliberate on nuclear disarmament and the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and work out elements of a draft declaration of the 2010s as the fourth disarmament decade.

The work of the Commission has demonstrated a change in the political climate and the appearance among states of a hope for overcoming the stagnation in the disarmament sphere. This is primarily linked to the decision by Russia and the US to start negotiations for a legally binding accord on further reductions in strategic offensive arms. Yet despite the constructive, non-confrontational character of the debate, substantial differences still remain in the approaches of the main groups of states to the ways and aims of the disarmament process.

The Russian delegation took an active part in the work of the session by advancing Russia’s priorities in nuclear disarmament, the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the prevention of an arms race in new spheres, including outer space, and others.

We expect the Commission as an important element of the multilateral UN disarmament mechanism to continue developing concrete recommendations on further steps toward disarmament and stronger WMD nonproliferation and elimination regimes.