Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 64: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if his Department has had contact with the Pakistani Government with regard to the status of its nuclear programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6812/06]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland, along with our EU colleagues, is deeply concerned about the ongoing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, considering it to be a major threat to international peace and security. The European Council in December 2003 adopted a strategy against the proliferation of such weapons. Under this strategy, the EU will use all political and diplomatic instruments at its disposal and undertake a wide range of actions to stem the proliferation of WMD and their means of delivery by both state and non-state actors. In this context, the EU has underlined the importance of full compliance with, and national implementation of, existing disarmament and non-proliferation treaties and agreements and other relevant international obligations.

Moreover, all EU member states, under an EU Common Position, agreed in November 2003, are legally obliged to promote the universalisation of key multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation agreements, including the NPT.

Ireland has a long-standing policy of support for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT, going back to Frank Aiken's initiative almost 50 years ago, and attaches the utmost importance to its universalisation. India, Israel and Pakistan are the only three countries that have not acceded to the NPT and Ireland will continue to avail of every opportunity to call for their adherence to the treaty as non-nuclear weapon states — nationally, within the EU, within the New Agenda Coalition, NAC, and at the United Nations.

Ireland strongly supports United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172 passed in June 1998 which, inter alia, calls on India and Pakistan to become parties to the NPT and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, CTBT, and to immediately stop their nuclear weapons development programmes, including the development of ballistic missiles capable of nuclear weapons delivery.

In February 2004, my predecessor, Deputy Cowen, led an EU ministerial level troika to Pakistan and, in line with this Common Position, emphasised our desire that Pakistan adhere to the NPT. At the NPT review conference in New York last May, I stated that it was a matter of serious concern that India, Israel and Pakistan continue to remain outside the NPT regime and I urged them to accede to the treaty unconditionally and at an early date. Such a call has also been made in recent statements by the European Union.

In addition, Ireland, with our partners in the New Agenda Coalition, introduced a resolution on the NPT to the first committee of the United Nations General Assembly last October. A separate vote was called on the paragraph in the resolution that urged India, Israel and Pakistan to accede to the treaty. The paragraph was supported by 148 countries. Last December, when the issue was taken up in the plenary of the General Assembly, 158 UN member states endorsed this call. Pakistan voted against that paragraph of the resolution at the first committee but abstained during the plenary.