17 November 1995
The resolution underlines the risks posed by continued nuclear testing to global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts as well as the potential unacceptable costs to health and the environment from continued testing. This is a message that France and China will ignore only at high cost to their international reputations.
Australia initiated the resolution, consistent with our established place at the forefront of international disarmament and non-proliferation efforts. We have worked assiduously to ensure that our message was both strong and as strongly supported as possible.
By standing up in support of the resolution, in the face of extraordinarily intensive efforts by France to oppose it, countries have sent the clear message to those states which continue to conduct nuclear tests that their activities are unacceptable. The resolution underlines the conviction of a majority of countries that, at this crucial stage in our collective search for a more secure world free of nuclear weapons, and in the finalisation of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the continuation of nuclear testing by some states is an aberration. It belongs to a different era, and harks back to the age of nuclear confrontation in a world we have deliberately and decisively put behind us.
It is now incumbent on France and China to listen to the international community, to adjust their thinking to the realities and the promised of the post Cold War world, and to stop nuclear testing now and forever.
Osaka