Arms deal treaty negotiations end in a stalemate at United Nations

UN negotiations to draft the first international treaty on the multi-billion-dollar arms trade have ended without a deal, with some diplomats blaming the United States for the deadlock.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Friday he was “disappointed” that member states failed to clinch an agreement after several years of preparatory work and four weeks of negotiations, calling it a “setback.”

But he vowed “steadfast” commitment to obtaining a “robust” arms trade treaty, noting that countries had agreed to pursue negotiations. “There is already considerable common ground and states can build on the hard work that has
been done during these negotiations,” he added.

Some diplomats said Washington had refused to vote on the proposed text, saying it needed more time before the midnight deadline and was worried about a pushback from the US Congress. Russia and other countries followed suit.

“It’s the fault of the United States that we failed,” a Western diplomat said, requesting anonymity to speak freely about the subject. “They derailed the process and we will have to wait for the US presidential elections” in November
to get out of the impasse, the diplomat added.

But State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, in a written statement issued late Friday, that the United States supported a second round of negotiations, conducted on the basis of consensus, on the treaty next year.

Nuland noted that while the illicit trafficking in conventional arms was an important national security concern for the United States, Washington did not support a vote at the UN General Assembly on the current text. 

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=29839

Posted by Hamza Jahangir on Jul 28 2012. Filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry