NORTH ATLANTIC ASSEMBLY AND ARMS CONTROL

That this House warmly welcomes the resolution passed on 26th May 1991 by the North Atlantic Assembly, the political wing of NATO, proposed by its President, Congressman Charles Rose (USA), which recognised that the nations of the Middle East have imported more than ú200 billion in conventional arms, mostly provided by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and which urged the governments of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China and other major arms supplier nations to act jointly to sharply curtail the transfer of conventional arms and of technologies related to the production of unconventional arms such as ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, and nuclear weapons, and technologies necessary to produce or assemble such weapons; and calls on Her Majesty's Government to respond quickly and positively to the call by the North Atlantic Assembly to take part in a conference with the purpose of establishing such an arms suppliers regime, believing that the uncontrolled proliferation of such weapons constitutes a debilitating diversion of the resources badly needed for development and peace.