Territorial Waters Claim For Nuclear-Free Areas

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30288, 14 November 1963, Page 17

Territorial Waters Claim For Nuclear-Free Areas

(N Z .P.A .-Reuter—Copy right)

NEW YORK. Nov. 13. Indonesia yesterday suggested that waters within the archipelagos of Indonesia should be declared territorial waters because of the demands of the nuclear age. Mr L. N. Palar told the United Nations' General Assembly’s Political Committee that such a declaration was “imperative” for the establishment of a nuclearfree zone in the area. Major world shipping lanes to Singapore and the Far East from Europe, Australia and the Pacific pass through the waters between the island chain which forms Indonesia. The Indonesian delegate suggested the same move should apply to large inland seas and the areas of water round the Philippines and northern Canada. His comments came during discussion about nuclear-free zones which he described as “one of the most potentially effective collateral and ancillary measures to general and complete disarmament” He referred to a recent critical appraisal of the worth of nuclear-free zones by the Australian delegate. Mr D. Hay. during the committee's debate on the 10nation proposal for UN. support of declaring Latin America a denuclearised zone. Mr Hay had asked wether, because of treaty limitations

on the high seas, the concept of nuclear free zones could only be applied to land masses. “This is a question of particular interest to my delegation with respect to large inland seas such as the Hudson Bay and the waters within the archipelagos of Indonesia. the Philippines and the northern part of Canada," Mr Palar said. “In our view, the demands of the nuclear age make it imperative that these seas be pronounced as the territorial waters of the appropriate nations, in order that they might be brought within the area of any nuclear-free zone that may be declared by the countries concerned “The fundamental principle that is inherent in the idea of countries declaring themselves a nuclear zone must not be ignored or denied," Mr Palar said. “This is the principle of the inalienable right of sovereign States to put themselves beyond the range of a possible nuclear conflict” Mr Palar said that although no group of countries could compel another to join a nuclear-free zone, there was no logical reason for a nuc-lear-free region to be "necessarily commensurate with a geographical region in its accepted sense of embracing a whole continent or an otherwise geographically defined

area such as the Pacific or South-East Asia. “For that matter, what is to prevent a single country from exercising its right to constitute itself a nuclearfree zone within a given geographical region?” he asked. To an objection that declaration of such a zone was too dangerous, the answer was that if the countries involved were willing to take the risk of having neighbours who had not committed themselves to -eing nuclear free, that was their right and they should not be discouraged. On the “crucial question” of the balance of power, there was one essential fact: "The countries most eager at the moment to proclaim themselves nuclear-free zones are those countries which not only have practically no potential for becoming nuclear Powers themselves, but on whose territories no nuclear weapons are at present stationed. . . . “The declaration of these nations as nuclear-free zones could not be said to upset the present balance of nuclear power. “In essence it would simply be a matter of formalising an existing situation: a situation which the non-nuclear countries, in exercise of their right to survival, wish to perpetuate and secure by treaty,” Mr Palar said.