highly complicated questions touching on vital national security considerations, through mutual good will, patience and determination. Before concluding, I would like to make a few further remarks with regard to the implications of the Threshold Test Ban and the PNE Treaties for our common objective of achieving further restraints on nuclear testing. The completion of such restraints, in a comprehensive test ban, continues to be one of the most important arms control goals facing this Committee.

In my Government's view, the provisions of the TTB and PNE Treaties governing underground nuclear explosions, including the exchange of detailed geological, geophysical and other information and the provision for on-site observation under certain circumstances, are major developments in the area of controls on nuclear explosions. We trust that the experience and confidence gained in implementing these two Treaties will facilitate our consideration of further nuclear testing restraints. At the same time, it should be recognized that the provisions of the PNE Treaty have been negotiated specifically to complement the weapon testing limitations of the TTBT. The PNE Treaty does not solve the problem of how to provide for PNEs in the context of a lower threshold, or of a complete cessation of nuclear weapon testing. As I stated previously, no solution to the problem of accommodating PNEs under a CTB has been found. Thus, care will be needed in utilizing the experience obtained.

Finally, although the most immediate interest of this Committee is the significance of the Threshold and PNE Treaties for their restraining influence on further nuclear weapons development, it is important to keep in mind that these agreements also have a broader meaning. As President Ford stated at the Washington signing ceremony of the PNE Treaty on 28 May:

The ultimate purpose of the network of arms control agreements we have already negotiated, and which are currently being negotiated, is to bring about a more peaceful world. Pushing back the shadow of nuclear war must be our constant concern.

Statement by the Soviet Representative (Likhatchev) to the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament: Treaty on Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes, August 10, 1976 1

1

We should like to give some brief clarifications in connexion with the Treaty between the USSR and the United States of America on Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes and the Protocol to this Treaty, which were signed simultaneously by L. I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in Moscow and by Mr. G. Ford,

8 Ante, pp. 348-349.

1 CCD/PV.719, pp. 13-16.

President of the United States of America, in Washington on 28 May this year. We understand that this corresponds to the wishes expressed by certain representatives in the Conference of the Committee on Dis

armament.

The conclusion of an agreement regulating underground nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes was envisaged in the Treaty of 3 July 1974 between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Weapon Tests (article III). This Treaty, which imposes limitations on underground nuclear weapon tests, stipulates that its provisions do not extend to underground nuclear explosions carried out by the parties for peaceful purposes." Accordingly, it was necessary to develop a special régime for such explosions, taking into account their peaceful nature, and this was duly done on 28 May 1976.

Nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes represent one of the new and very promising avenues of the use of nuclear energy. Extensive research and many experiments carried out in the Soviet Union have shown the great economic efficiency of nuclear explosions for the realization of many national economic projects which have so far been carried out with conventional chemical explosives. Moreover, the peaceful use of energy from nuclear explosions opens up completely new opportunities in the area of explosion techniques and in the solution of complex engineering tasks which it would be practically inconceivable to carry out by traditional methods.

On the basis of scientific studies and experiments conducted in the Soviet Union, the following possible ways of using the energy of underground nuclear explosions for economic purposes may be foreseen intensification of the development of petroleum and gas deposits; construction of underground storage capacity for natural gas, gas condensate and petroleum products; construction of underground capacity for the disposal of biologically harmful industrial wastes; underground development of ore deposits; bringing accidental gas and petroleum gushers under control; preparation of deposits of useful minerals for open-cast mining, that is to say, removal of the overburden from open-cast mines, creating entry and exit trenches, drainage of deposits, crushing of the overburden; construction of canals; construction of rock-fill dams for hydro-electric power stations; construction of industrial water supply reservoirs; creation of cuttings and embankments in rail and road construction, and so forth.

At the present time, for example, the rapid development of the gas and petroleum extraction industry in the Soviet Union has given rise to serious problems of gas and petroleum storage capacity. Metal storage facilities are expensive and their construction takes considerable time. Several experimental underground storage reservoirs have been created in salt beds in our country by means of nuclear explosions. The

nuclear explosion heated the salt, while the wave generated by the explosion quickly moved it away, thus forming an enormous cavity with fused, compressed walls. Such a storage area can be used to store petroleum, gas or gas condensate. A capacity of 50.000 m3 created by a nuclear explosion in the rock salt mass for the storage of gas condensate made it possible to reduce the cost of this capacity threefold as compared with that of the conventional type and to reduce metal consumption tenfold. Not so long ago, our experts succeeded in extinguishing, by means of an underground explosion, a huge fire at a gas deposit which could not be put out by any other means. The method of peaceful nuclear explosions has also been used to construct dams and to set up barriers against landslides.

The Treaty contains provisions on the intention of the parties to develop co-operation in the sphere of underground nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes. All the countries of the world would benefit by the development of such co-operation.

The Soviet-United States Treaty on Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes will regulate the procedure for the conduct of such explosions under the conditions of the limitation of underground nuclear tests, in order to ensure that peaceful nuclear explosions are not used for purposes related to nuclear weapons. This requirement is met by the provisions of the Treaty on Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes, the Protocol thereto and the Agreed Statement signed on 28 May. The aforesaid documents have been published in the press and have been circulated as working papers of the Committee on Disarmament. We therefore do not intend to give a detailed account of their content.

At the same time, we should like to make some comments on the verification provisions contained in the above-mentioned documents. First of all, we should like to recall what is the purpose of such verification. This is the prohibition to carry out :

1. any individual explosion having a yield exceeding 150 kilotons or any group explosion having an aggregate yield exceeding 150 kilotons, if it is impossible to identify each individual explosion and to determine its yield;

2. any group explosion having an aggregate yield exceeding 1.5 megatons;

3. any explosion which does not carry out a peaceful application (that is, explosions outside testing areas).

Verification of compliance with these provisions will be effected as follows:

In the first place, the parties will use the national technical means of verification at their disposal in a manner consistent with generally recognized principles of international law.

Secondly, the parties will provide one another with information and access to sites of explosions under the specific conditions which are clearly set forth in the Protocol to the Treaty.

The gist of this verification system is to ensure that the explosions carried out correspond to the declared peaceful purposes. Moreover, since explosions having a yield exceeding 150 kilotons are prohibited at this stage, it is necessary to ensure that this provision is observed. As is known, the same problem arises in connexion with the Soviet-United States Treaty on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Weapon Tests. But in that Treaty it is solved only on the basis of national technical means, whereas in the case of the Treaty on Peaceful Nuclear Explosions the possibility of the presence of foreign representatives at the explosion site is admitted. What is the reason for this difference? The fact is that nuclear weapon tests are carried out at specifically determined sites, or proving grounds, on which the parties are required to exchange detailed information under the Treaty of 3 July 1974. On the other hand, the sites of peaceful explosions are naturally selected in each individual case according to the purpose of the project for which such an explosion is being carried out. Additional problems therefore arise in connexion with the need to determine whether or not a peaceful explosion exceeds the prescribed yield threshold. That is precisely why access of foreign representatives to the explosion site is allowed in the case of an explosion having a planned aggregate yield exceeding 100 kilotons but not exceeding 150 kilotons and in the case of any group explosion having a planned aggregate yield exceeding 150 kilotons. It should also be noted that, the greater the yield of the explosion, the greater the volume of data to be exchanged between the parties. These provisions are motivated by the fact that, the closer the yield of the explosion to the agreed threshold, the greater the amount of data on teleseismic measurements required.

The control system designed to verify the peaceful nature of a nuclear explosion does not, of course, imply any change in the Soviet Union's position with regard to the verification of the complete and general prohibition of nuclear weapon tests. Underground weapon tests raise problems of their detection and identification. These problems may be solved on the basis of national technical means, supplemented by co-operation in the international exchange of seismic data. As stated above, the 1974 Soviet-United States Treaty on the Limitation of Underground Tests is based precisely on these national technical means of verification. In the case of peaceful nuclear explosions, however, it is necessary to ensure that underground nuclear explosions are used for peaceful purposes and for peaceful purposes only. The Treaty of 28 May 1976 is designed to ensure such control. The signature of this Treaty also opens the way to the ratification of the Soviet-United States Treaty on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Tests. Accordingly, this act represents yet another link in the chain of measures directed towards limiting the proliferation of

armaments and attaining the goal of the general and complete prohibition of nuclear weapon tests.

We now consider it necessary to refer to another problem.

Yesterday, on 9 August, at its unofficial meeting, the Committee on Disarmament resumed consideration of the question of new types and systems of weapons of mass destruction, in accordance with the decision taken by the Committee. Government experts from a considerable number of States are also taking part in the discussion of this most important disarmament problem-a fact which demonstrates the growing interest that States members of the Committee are showing in the Soviet Union's proposal.

Soviet Working Paper Submitted to the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament: Definitions of New Types of Weapons of Mass Destruction and New Systems of Such Weapons, August 10, 19761

The draft agreement on the prohibition of new types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons, submitted by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at the thirtieth session of the United Nations General Assembly, provides that the new types of weapons of mass destruction and the new systems of such weapons to be prohibited are to be specified through negotiations on the subject (article I, paragraph 1 of the draft).2

Further to the preliminary considerations on the question of the definition of new types and systems of weapons of mass destruction, as expressed by the Soviet experts at the 1976 spring session, the present working paper proposes the following draft definitions:

I. New Types of Weapons of Mass Destruction

New types of weapons of mass destruction shall include types of weapons which are based on qualitatively new principles of action and whose effectiveness may be comparable with or surpass that of traditional types of weapons of mass destruction.

The term "based on qualitatively new principles of action" shall be understood to mean that the means of producing the effect or the target or nature of the effect of the weapon is new.

The term "means of producing the effect" shall be understood to mean the specific type of physical, chemical or biological action.

The term "target" shall be understood to mean the type of target, ranging from vitally important elements of the human organism to elements of man's ecological and geophysical environment, and also to networks and installations which are vitally important for human existence.