UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday urged governments to revitalize momentum on disarmament and non- proliferation, one of his key priorities since taking office. He was addressing a high-level meeting aimed at ending the continued "long inertia" on the Conference on Disarmament, the 65- country forum established in 1979 to negotiate arms control and disarmament agreements, dpa reported. Ban said the Geneva-based conference - "the undisputed home of international arms control efforts" - since last year adopting its first programme of work in more than a decade, has been unable to translate this breakthrough into substantive progress. "We all believe that the multilateral disarmament machinery should deliver more, and more quickly. Only the political will of member states can make that happen," Ban said at the meeting held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Ban noted they were meeting only two days after a UN summit on the anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). "Since the MDGs were first articulated a decade ago, world military expenditure has risen by 50 per cent to more than 1.5 trillion dollars," he said. "Imagine what we could do if we devoted these resources to poverty reduction ... climate-change mitigation ... food security ... global health and other global development challenges." He said that disarmament and non-proliferation are not only essential for international peace and security, but also for building confidence among countries and strengthening regional stability. He cited as encouraging developments the New START Treaty between the United States and Russia and an agreement reached at the 2010 NPT Review Conference in New York. "We have built important momentum. This is hard-won momentum, and we should build on recent achievements," Ban said. "Yet much remains to be done - both on weapons of mass destruction and conventional weaponry. The next few years are critical. We can push forward on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament or risk sliding back."
