Statement by Steven R. Costner, Deputy Director, Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, at the Review Conference on the UN Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects

by Steven R. Costner, Deputy Director, Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs

New York, NY

September 7, 2012

AS DELIVERED

Madame President, The United States welcomes the successful conclusion of this conference and the consensus agreement we have reached on the outcome documents. 

We also express our deepest congratulations and appreciation to you and the facilitators for your tireless efforts to bring us to this point. 

While we support the work done at this conference, we are disassociating from the reference to paragraph 11 of the Preamble of the Programme of Action, which addresses self-determination and foreign occupation, as contained in paragraph two of the Declaration section of the Outcome Document in Annex 1 of the Report, as we do not consider this language to be appropriate for this declaration.

Thank you.

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