New York, 6 October 2016. Cuba alerted today at the General Debate of the UN First Committee that the possibility of a nuclear war is becoming ever closer and unpredictable and insisted that nuclear disarmament is an international priority and deserves attention at the highest level.
At this forum, the delegate of Cuba to the First Committee, Lilianne Sánchez Rodríguez, supported the holding of an International Conference of the United Nations in 2017 to negotiate a legally binding instrument prohibiting nuclear weapons, with a view to their elimination, and reiterated that as long as these not eliminated, there is an urgent need for a treaty providinguniversal and unconditional security assurances to non-nuclear-weapon states.
The Cuban delegate took the opportunity to point out that Cuba maintains unrestricted support to the establishment in the Middle East of a zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, as an essential contribution to peace and security of all peoples of this region and reaffirmedthe need to search for ways to satisfactorily conclude the ongoing investigation processes in Syria.At the same time, she resolutely repudiated the application of sanctions and coercive measures as a way to settle disputes over disarmament and non-proliferation.
As part of her statement, she communicated Cuba’s pride for belonging to the first densely populated region of the planet established as a nuclear weapon-free zone, following its formal Proclamation at the Second Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) held in Havana, Cuba, in January 2014. Hence, by virtue of the said Proclamation and international law, she demanded the return of the territory illegally occupied by the US Naval Base in Guantanamo, against the will of the Cuban people.
At the end, she reiterated Cuba’s proposal to create a United Nations-managed fund, to which the current resources used in weapons would be allocated to address the needs of economic and social development, and to contribute in order to turn the Post-2015 Development Agenda into reality. (Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations)