Chinese envoy: Disarmament conference bears major responsibility for reviving process of multilateral disarmament

GENEVA, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- As the single multilateral disarmament negotiating body, the Conference on Disarmament should bear the main responsibility for reviving the process of multilateral disarmament, Wang Qun, Chinese Ambassador for Disarmament Affairs, said Friday.

Addressing the first 2008 session of the United Nations-sponsored Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Wang called on all parties at the event to reduce differences through dialogue and negotiation and address the concerns of each party.

Wang said China hoped all parties could come up soon with a widely-acceptable plan that seeks overall balance and implement pragmatic work, injecting momentum into the conference.

The Chinese government is dedicated to making constructive efforts toward that, Wang said.

The first session of the conference opened Wednesday in the Palace of Nations in the Swiss capital of Geneva. Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, presided over the conference.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Tunisian Foreign Minister Abdelwaheb Abdallah attended and addressed the conference.

The 2008 conference is expected to have three sessions this year.

In the first session, which will run in late March, participants will discuss nuclear disarmament, the prevention of an arms race in outer space, the security guarantee of non-nuclear countries, as well as the ban on the production of nuclear weapons with fissionable materials.

Established in 1979, the Conference on Disarmament has 65 member states. It succeeded the Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament which was founded in 1962.

The body has generated a series of important international protocols, such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention.