GENEVA, March 20. /TASS/. Over-politicization is becoming a key factor that is impeding the functions of the UN disarmament mechanism, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a plenary meeting of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on Wednesday.
"It is obvious that the work of the Conference on Disarmament, the UN General Assembly First Committee and the UN Commission on Disarmament cannot be fully disentangled from politics. However, lately there have been attempts by certain countries to introduce storylines at these forums that serve no other purpose but to get back at the countries they don’t like. Among the factors that hamper the normal functioning of the UN disarmament triad, ultra-politicization takes center stage," the foreign minister said.
"We believe it is unacceptable when logical and promising proposals aimed at ensuring equal and inseparable security for all through objective and constructive dialogue are simply shrugged off," Lavrov pointed out. "As a result, the work of the Conference on Disarmament is blocked, the First Committee’s decisions are devalued, and the UN Commission of Disarmament’s authority is lowered."
At the same time, according to the Russian top diplomat, the current complications do not mean that the mechanism that was established 40 years ago is "bad as it is and needs dismantling, as some radically-minded states suggest." "Russia disagrees with this point of view. The current state of the UN disarmament mechanism reflects the overall difficulties in the international political climate, the refusal of the West to communicate in order to improve the current, and to develop new and universally accepted instruments of arms control," Lavrov emphasized.