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Statement on behalf of the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania at the United Nations Disarmament Commission, the General Debate on Monday, 3 April 2023.

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson,

I am speaking on behalf of the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Mr. Chairperson,

We wish to congratulate you on your assumption of the Chairmanship of the United Nations Disarmament Commission (UNDC) for its 2023 session. We commend the leadership of Kazakhstan in stepping forward and facilitating this session’s work.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania align themselves with the statement delivered earlier on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.

Mr. Chairperson,

We value the input by the UNDC as a specialized subsidiary body in conducting discussions on disarmament issues of importance. Since last year’s UNDC session the global situation of security and stability has continued to deteriorate substantially.

For over a year now Russia keeps on waging its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine in blatant violation of its obligations under international law, including the UN Charter. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania condemn in the strongest possible terms Russia’s unprovoked, illegal and unjustified full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine. We continue to stand firmly with Ukraine. Russia must immediately and unconditionally cease its aggression and withdraw all its troops and military equipment from the entire territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.

In August last year Russia broke the emerging consensus for the NPT Review conference outcome document. In February this year Russia announced the suspension of its participation in the New START, thus undermining global nuclear stability. Russia continues to resort to threatening, irresponsible and dangerous nuclear rhetoric, which has recently been amplified by the statement of 25 March on Russia's plans to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus. This represents another reckless provocation and adds to the already serious threat that Russia poses to European and global security. Russia‘s anouncement also runs counter to the commitment by Belarus taken into account in the Budapest Memorandum. It is deeply concerning that Belarus keeps on supporting and aiding Russian aggression, and gets  integrated more and more closely into Russia's military plans. The Belarusian authorities must stop providing support for Russia‘s war efforts.

Russia‘s announcemment on deployment of nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory comes a little more than a year after Russia signed the P5 joint statement reaffirming that ‚nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought‘ and merely three days after Russia reafirmed the same in the joint statement with China, and further committed  to reduce the risk of nuclear war and ease tensions. We therefore reiterate our call on Russia to reverse this decision and abide by all of its commitments and to return to full compliance with the New START.

Mr. Chairperson,

The global community must continue its efforts to prevent ongoing nuclear proliferation challenges from transforming into crises.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) continues the pursuit of its unlawful nuclear weapons program and its missile capabilities, as demonstrated by the conduct of an unprecedented number of ballistic missile test launches that included ICBMs. We call on the DPRK to comply with the UN Security Council resolutions and to abandon all of its ballistic missile and existing nuclear programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner, and to engage in a diplomatic process.

We remain gravely concerned about Iran further drifting away from the JCPOA commitments, which pose a threat of creating irreversible proliferation implications. We strongly urge Iran to reverse its alarming nuclear trajectory, and to return to full implementation of the JCPOA and the Additional Protocol of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement.

Mr. Chairperson,

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are looking forward to a comprehensive discussion at the UNDC’s plenary meetings and at its working groups. Since our main priorities have already been outlined in the European Union’s statement, permit us to briefly mention only a couple of them. We wish to emphasize the significance of the new review cycle of the NPT, which is about to start with its 1st PrepCom meeting in Vienna, and also with the commencement of the working group on the strengthening of the review cycle. At the same time, we highly value the activities of the Geneva based UN OEWG on reducing space threats through norms, rules and principles of responsible behavior, and we are looking forward to its consensus report to be submitted to the UN General Assembly later this year. We are convinced, that discussions at this UNDC session can make a positive substantive contribution to both of these processes.     

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.