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Moscow ready to continue work on global arms trade draft treaty

The delegations’ tense work to form key provisions of the treaty continued until the very last day

MOSCOW, July 30 (Itar-Tass) — Moscow is ready to continue the work on the global arms trade draft treaty, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported on Monday.

Commenting on the results of the U.N. thematic debates in New York on July 2-27, the ministry said, “The U.N. Conference abstained from approving the project. Instead a decision was taken to discuss the global arms trade draft treaty. Russia is ready to continue the joint work in order to adopt a document based on high international standards and aimed at strengthening national systems to control arms trade.”

“The delegations’ tense work to form key provisions of the treaty continued until the very last day. On July 26, the Conference chairman circulated the official draft. This was a live and ineffective document, which does not correspond to traditionally high standards of international treaties, which was worked out under the U.N. auspices. The key task is that the adoption of the document in the present form would not facilitate the effective resolution of problems related to illegal arms trafficking,” the ministry said.

“The document had no concrete practical measures to prevent arms from falling into ‘gray’ and ‘black’ markets. This task has been determined only generally. In addition, the document lacks a provision saying arms supplies are only admissible to structures authorised by the state. Thus, there will be holes for arms diversion to the hands of terrorists and criminals. The Russian proposals are aimed at preventing them from getting access to arms,” the ministry said.

“Totally, the project falls far short of supreme common standards in the field of global arms trade. They are much lower that are used in Russia and other states in compliance with the existing international practice. There are serious apprehensions that such low standards would diminish the effectiveness of our monitoring systems,” the ministry said.