Disarmament is not a utopia, but a tool for preventing and resolving conflicts, and approaches to arms control should be based on the principles of transparency and irreversibility, United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu said on Friday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th November, 2019) Disarmament is not a utopia, but a tool for preventing and resolving conflicts, and approaches to arms control should be based on the principles of transparency and irreversibility, United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu said on Friday.
"There has to be clear understanding that disarmament is not about creating a utopian world, but it's a tool, an instrument, a key measure to prevent, also mitigate and resolve conflict," Nakamitsu said at the Moscow Nonproliferation Conference.
The official also underlined the importance of basing any future approaches to arms control on compliance with relevant agreements.
"Any new vision really needs to be also grounded in the principles of verifiability, irreversibility and transparency, and, I would add, very importantly accountability and also enforcement. Compliance, I think, has to be a really important feature of any vision," Nakamitsu explained.
She added that the UN attached great importance to protecting civilians, when addressing issues of non-proliferation and arms control.
