§ Mr. George HowarthTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the achievements made by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in multilateral disarmament of(a) conventional weapons, (b) chemical and biological weapons and (c) nuclear weapons since 1959.
§ Mr. WaldegraveI have been asked to reply.
With regard to conventional weapons, all NATO states are signatories of the agreement reached in Stockholm in September 1986 on a range of confidence-building measures designed to increase openness and predictability about military activities in Europe NATO states are currently participating in a further round of such talks in Vienna designed to build on the results achieved in Stockholm. Also in Vienna, NATO/Warsaw pact negotiations have just begun on conventional armed forces in Europe with the aim of establishing a stable balance of forces in Europe: the mandate for these negotiations is based largely on Alliance proposals. These new talks supersede the MBFR negotiations, in which a number of Alliance countries participated: these concluded on 2 February.
109WIn the field of biological and chemical weapons an international convention prohibiting the development, production and stockpiling of biological weapons was concluded in 1972. All NATO member states are a party to it. The multilateral negotiations for a global ban on chemical weapons continue at the 40-nation conference on disarmament in Geneva.
In respect of nuclear weapons NATO countries actively supported the successful negotiation of the INF treaty removing ground based intermediate range nuclear missiles from Europe: the elimination of these missiles was first proposed by NATO in 1981.