Conferenceon Disarmament informal meeting on Expansion of the Membership
Genf, 13 juuni 2017
Mr. President,
First,let me congratulate Slovakia on the assumption of the CD Presidency and thankyou for your initiative to organise the informal discussions to consider theissue of the expansion of the CD membership.
Whilewe fully align with the statements by the EU and the Informal Group of ObserverStates (IGOS), Estonia would like to highlight a few important points.
Efforts to breakthe deadlock in CD will continue to require sustained political will andcreative thinking from all CD members. In this respect, we believe that CDwould benefit from transparency and inclusiveness.
TheConference on Disarmament (CD) has the crucial role to negotiate multilateraldisarmament treaties according to its mandate. We believe that suchnegotiations, and discussions on matters of global importance, such asdisarmament, must be addressed in universally representative bodies, and shouldinclude all sovereign states, who wish to be part of it.
Thus, weunderline the importance of continuing consultations on the expansion of CDmembership and strongly support the appointment of a special coordinator inthis respect.
Thank you,Mr President.