Dr. ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the most recent responses by ambassadors at the United Nations 40-nation disarmament committee in Geneva on(a) nuclear disarmament initiatives from the United Kingdom under article VI of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and (b) United Kingdom initiatives on verification procedures in support of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.
§ Mr. MellorArticle VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons requires the parties to it to pursue negotiations on effective measures connected with nuclear disarmament. The conference on disarmament provides a valuable forum for discussion of these issues, but since the United States and the Soviet Union 789W possess between them the overwhelming preponderance of nuclear weapons it is universally recognised that the primary responsibility for negotiations must fall to them. The resolution of outstanding verification procedures in support of a comprehensive test ban treaty does not require "initiatives", which are unlikely to solve the real technical difficulties; rather, it needs scientific work, which is conducted by the conference on disarmament's ad hoc group of scientific experts, in which the United Kingdom plays a constructive part.