Treaty mission hits problems

Press, 11 February 1986, Page 18

Treaty mission hits problems

NZPA staff correspondent London

A South Pacific delegation confronted key differences with France when outlining its nuclear-free zone on Saturday, and said it could not be confident other nuclearweapons Powers would sign anti-nuclear treaty protocols.

Mr David Sadleir, an Australian Foreign Ministry official who heads the delegation, said Government representatives in Paris had made their position clear on crunch points such as nuclear testing. “There were no efforts to disguise differences on key issues,” Mr Sadleir said.

“We explained the treaty and the concepts behind particular articles and they explained their attitude. The issue of test-

ing is one where there is a clear difference of view.”

The delegation is meeting the five nuclearweapon nations, Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union and the United States, about the treaty adopted by heads of Government at last years’s South Pacific Forum in Rarotonga. They visited China and the Soviet Union at the start of a mission to get the five Powers to sign protocols to refrain from testing, acquiring, or using nuclear weapons within the South Pacific. Officials of the Soviet Union and China have been reported as giving a positive response to the treaty proposals. The French view was expected to be negative, not least because of the nuclear testing programme at Mururoa Atoll, which has wide political

form. The heads of Government will have to finalise them.

“Nobody will give you a blank cheque on that now... they don’t know what they are going to have to sign.” The delegation was received by the SecretaryGeneral of the French Foreign Ministry, Mr Andre Ross. Mr Sadleir said the meetings were “serious and business-like.” “The French side treated us very seriously and with great courtesy, and there was no attempt support in France.

Mr Sadleir said he could not say whether any of the nations would give their signatures. He said, “We can’t be too confident about any of the places we have been to, since the protocols, which are what the five States will be asked to sign, are not yet in a final

by them to pass it off as something unimportant. There was no attempt by us to pass off the French point of view as trivial.”

The South Pacific delegation, which includes a New Zealand Foreign Ministry official, Mr Chris Beeby, and representatives of Fiji, the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, “all welcomed it as a serious sort of constructive exchange,” Mr Sadleir said. “We explained the treaty and the concepts behind particular articles and they explained their attitudes.”

The Forum meeting in Rarotonga did not finally adopt the three protocols to the treaty, but decided instead to consult the nuclear-weapon States. The treaty says the South Pacific States will not acquire nuclear weapons or allow them to

be tested or based in their territory. It leaves each member country free to decide its own policy on port access. The first protocol addresses the three countries outside the region which have territories within it — the United Kingdom (Pitcairn), the United States (American Samoa), and France.

Protocol one asks those countries to apply the treaty prohibitions against acquisition, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons in their territories.

The second protocol asks the five nuclearweapon States to give a commitment not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any party to the treaty.

The third deals with testing, and asks all nuclear-weapon States not to test anywhere in the region.