(98.05.14)林大使印核実験ＣＤｽﾃｰﾄﾒﾝﾄ

　 It is a pleasure for my delegation to return to the CD and to continue to work towards our common goal of disarmament. Your wisdom, experience and authority will be invaluable to us all. I can assure you the fullest cooperation of my delegation, and I wish you a successful tenure as we jointly pursue our important work.

　 Today I have asked for the floor firstly to inform the Conference of the statement made in Tokyo by the Chief Cabinet Secretary, the official spokesman of the Government of Japan, concerning the nuclear tests conducted by India on 11 May 1998. I would like to quote his statement as follows:

　 "In the afternoon of 11 May 1998, Indian Prime Minister Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced that India conducted underground nuclear testing. It is extremely regrettable that India conducted such testing, resisting the global trend to ban nuclear testing, while the international community including Japan has repeatedly requested the Indian new administration for maximum self-restraint on nuclear policies. Japan strongly urges the Indian Government to stop its development of nuclear weapons immediately. Further, Japan calls on the countries concerned in the region for self-restraint in order not to let the Indian nuclear testing harm the stability of the region.

　 India conducted, in spite of earnest appeals from every corner of the globe, two more nuclear tests on 13 May. These actions run directly counter to the global aims of the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons and the ban on nuclear testing. It is said that these explosions completed a series of tests but the damage caused by them and their ultimate effects on the goals of international disarmament are immeasurable.

　 Words are not sufficient to express the shock of the Japanese government as well as that of the Japanese people who collectively have been making earnest efforts towards the nuclear test ban and the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons.

　 The Japanese peoples' feelings and opposition to the nuclear tests are reflected in the resolution adopted by the Upper House of the Japanese Diet on May 13th. The resolution

states, in short, that the entire country of Japan, being the only country in the world to have suffered nuclear devastation, profoundly regrets the nuclear tests and strongly appeals to the Indian government to halt immediately its nuclear weapons programme.

　 My delegation finds the recent nuclear tests by India particularly and extremely regrettable because they were conducted in the face of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) adopted in 1996, and against the will of the international community whose goal is to attain global nuclear non-proliferation. While acknowledging that India is a signatory to neither the CTBT nor to the NPT, the global nuclear test ban and the NPT regime are accepted as an important international norm through the explicit commitments by and practices of the overwhelming majority of the international community. The underground explosions in the desert have single-handedly smashed the hope that nuclear testing had, in fact, ended forever. The earnest and sometimes painstaking efforts of the international community that was aiming at a world free of nuclear weapons have also been challenged.

　 The Indian statement issued after the testing claimed that, "These tests provide reassurance to the people of India that their national security interests are paramount and will be promoted and protected." Japan is convinced that such tests, at final reckoning, will adversely affect the stability in the region, resulting in the weakening rather than the strengthening of India's national security. It is sincerely hoped that other countries in the region or any other place in the world for that matter will not follow India's example but, instead, exercise the utmost self-restraint in the face of the unsolicited crisis so that the nuclear testing will neither result in a vicious circle of further regional instability in general nor in the revival of a nuclear arms race in particular.

　 Having made Japan's unequivocal opposition against nuclear testing clear, I would like to emphasize that the Indian nuclear tests should in no way be seen as an impediment to our work in the CD. Instead, we should learn from them and work even harder towards the goal of global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. In this context, we should reaffirm the utmost importance and necessity of our efforts towards the early entry into force of the CTBT and the early commencement of negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty.