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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Answer

Mr. Wareing: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what parts of the Iraqi document on weapons of mass destruction of 8 December 2002 were released to the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council; and what the response has been of those non-permanent members. [91345] Mr. Rammell: Under relevant non-proliferation conventions, China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States of America are obliged to prevent the dissemination of information relating to the production of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. The President of the UN Security Council therefore decided that the full Iraqi declaration should be given only to these members of the Security Council, who also have the expertise to assess the risks of proliferation. His decision followed consultations with all members of the Security Council. The non-permanent members received the main body of the Declaration excluding a number of sensitive passages and words that were omitted by UNMOVIC and the IAEA who, after consulting the Security Council members with expertise to assess the risks of proliferation, judged them to contain information which might be of use to potential WMD proliferators. Several non-permanent members have expressed a wish to see the complete declaration. There continues to be discussion on whether arrangements should be made to enable non-permanent members to consult a copy of the full Declaration.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

91345; 398 c79W;398 c81W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Disclosure of information Chemical weapons Biological weapons Iraq Nuclear weapons Publications Weapons UN Security Council

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk