§ Mr. Pawseyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list his Department's principal achievements in working towards disarmarnent since 1983.
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§ Mr. EggarWe have continued to participate directly and constructively in all the active multilateral negotiations and discussions on arms control and disarmament. We maintain close and regular contacts with the United States on the bilateral United States/Soviet talks on nuclear and space arms and agree that priority should be given to an INF agreement with restraints on shorter range systems and a 50 per cent. cut over five years in United States and Soviet strategic offensive weapons. British Ministers have also maintained a dialogue on arms control with representatives of the Soviet Union.
We have played a leading role at the conference on disarmament in Geneva, in particular in the efforts to achieve a world-wide permanent and verifiable ban on chemical weapons. The United Kingdom has tabled five detailed proposals to this end in Geneva since 1983. The conference's ad hoc negotiating committee, which has been under United Kingdom chairmanship for 1986, has made encouraging progress this year.
We played a prominent and positive role at the third review conference on the non-proliferation treaty in August-September 1985 in Geneva, which produced a final document strongly endorsing this important treaty.
We took the lead in formulating the West's constructive and innovative proposal for verification of troop reductions at the mutual and balanced force reduction talks in December 1985, which remains on the table.
We were instrumental in the establishment of the high level task force on conventional arms control set up by the North Atlantic Council ministerial meeting in Halifax, Canada, in May this year, which is continuing to examine opportunities to make progress in the elimination of conventional force disparities on the basis of the Brussels declaration.
We made a significant contribution to the negotiation of the package of confidence and security-building measures agreed by the conference on disarmament in Europe in Stockholm in September, which promises to bring about a greater degree of openness and predictability about military activities in the whole of Europe.
We also made a substantial contribution to the successful outcome of the biological weapons convention review conference in Geneva in September.
At the United Nation's General Assembly's first committee, we have continued to work towards a better understanding of our policies and at this year's session the United Kingdom was the principal sponsor of resolutions on the bilateral arms negotiations, objective information about military budgets and United Nations disarmament studies, all of which were carried. In addition we cosponsored several other constructive resolutions on disarmament matters.