YouSaid · the spoken record

SHEVARDNADZE

lines on the record: 272
first: 1985-09-24
most recent: 1990-09-24
sittings or episodes: 6
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Consequently, in conditions of strategic equilibrium there could be no winner in a nuclear war and starting one would be tantamount to committing suicide. Yet the situation might change if one side should try to acquire such a nuclear potential as would encourage it to think that by a single strike it could deprive the other side of adequate retaliatory capacity against aggression, particularly if the potential aggressor should develop a space-based anti-missile shield and count on it to protect itself against a retaliatory strike. It is obvious that in such case the aggressor might be tempted to deliver or threaten to deliver a first "disarming" nuclear strike - as it is now known - counting on its immunity to retaliation. Hence the extreme danger inherent in any bid for military superiority in a nuclear age.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“The problem I am referring to is that of preventing an arms race in cuter space and ending the arms race on earth, limiting and reducing nuclear arms and enhancing strategic stability. I will address this question in somewhat greater detail. To begin with, it would appear indisputable that as long as States possess nuclear weapons the risk of the outbreak of nuclear war cannot be completely ruled out. It is equally true, however, that in conditions of strategic equilibrium, that risk is comparatively lower, for strategic equilibrium means essentially that each side, even if it became a victim of nuclear aggression committed by the other side, would retain sufficient strategic capacity to strike an equally devastating blow to the aggressor.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“We therefore believe that both sides have an interest in the successful outcome of the forthcoming meeting between the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States. This is precisely how the Soviet Union approaches that meeting. It remains to be seen what will be the attitude of the other side in this matter. We are convinced that the Soviet-American summit meeting should focus on the most important problem of the day, the problem upon whose solution truly depends on the possibility of decisively reducing the danger of war, restoring international trust and creating the conditions necessary for resolving many other pressing issues in relations among States.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“It attaches special importance to the factor of confidence in those relations, and it is pleased when it sees that this factor is present in its relations with various countries in Europe, America, Asia, Africa or Oceania. In our relations with other States we have always given priority to the search for ways of easing international tension and averting the danger of war. Of great importance in this context is the forthcoming visit of Mikhail Gorbachev to France. We also want to build normal, stable relations with the United States. We have never been the initiators of confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. We do not believe that the tensions today in Soviet-American relations result from an inevitable clash of national interests.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“In particular, at the Stockholm Conference of states participating in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, the soviet union is working for the adoption of a complex of large-scale, effective political, military and technical confidence-building measures. At Stockholm we are now prepared to proceed immediately, together with our negotiating partners, to the actual drafting of agreements to that effect. Our country attaches major importance to the pan-European process as a whole. The Soviet Union is building and developing its relations with all States in strict compliance with the Final Act and on the basis of the 10 principles proclaimed therein.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“In discussions about the ways of improving the situation frequent mention is also made of the need to restore, above all, confidence among States. This, it is said, would make it possible to resolve all major problems, including those of halting the arms race and settling regional conflicts. Indeed, confidence is an important factor in overcoming the current difficulties. We feel, however, that it is impossible to achieve a necessary and reliable degree of trust in relations among States unless the causes and the material roots of distrust are removed. But work to restore confidence must be pursued, and that is what we are doing.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“Secondly, the Soviet Union is not involved in any competition whatsoever, whether for markets, natural resources, control over sea or air routes, or the possession of outer space. On the other hand, it is of course true that the Soviet Union is one of the world's two most powerful nations. But the whole point is what political aims are served by that Power. Those who invoke the concept of the "two super-Powers" would ' be well advised to ponder once in a while what would happen to their independence and what turn world developments would generally take if the USSR were weaker than it is and if the Soviet people were not investing so such of their effort, material resources and scientific endeavor in maintaining its economic and military potential at an adequate level.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“All of this is being said not for the sake of polemics but in order that the United Nations may, on the basis of real facts and through concerted efforts, devise effective ways of radically improving international relations and strengthening universal security. What are these ways as we see them? It is said at times that all that is needed is that the two super-Powers should stop competing with each other for influence in the world. This proposition stems either from ignorance or from malicious intent. First, the Soviet Union has no intention of placing itself above other States and peoples, nor is it seeking opportunities to order them about or dictate its will to them.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“It was the United States that in 1983 torpedoed the Soviet-United States talks on the limitation of nuclear arms in Europe by embarking on the deployment of its new nuclear missiles on the European continent. And the new military programs which now cover not only the land, oceans and atmosphere of our planet but also outer space are United States programs too. No particular perspicacity is needed to see clearly that precisely those States that are obstructing disarmament efforts are also set on fomenting local conflicts. They bear responsibility for the failure thus far to come to grips with problems common to all mankind.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“Responsibility for the current critical state of international relations rests with another group of countries, namely, the United States and some of its closest allies. It was they who, in the early 1980s, wrecked the structure of negotiations which had taken such an effort to build, negotiations which had shown signs of progress towards agreements in many areas ranging from complete and general prohibition of nuclear-weapon tests to the limitation of sales and supplies of conventional armaments, from banning the development of anti-satellite systems to limiting military activities in the Indian Ocean. It was the united States that refused to ratify the SALT II treaty designed to pave the way to further, ever more substantial cuts in strategic arms.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“The only thing that we could be "guilty" of is that we have invariably been and remain on the side of the peoples threatened by imperialism and of the States upon whose sovereignty and generally recognized rights imperialism is encroaching. As regards the increasingly acute economic problems common to all mankind, the Soviet Union has consistently been in favor of uniting the efforts of all States and peoples with a view to finding a rational solution to those problems. This is the thrust of the proposals made by our country, by all Warsaw Treaty member countries, for a drastic reduction in the military expenditures of States, and above all of the major Powers. These are all facts, which cannot be disputed.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“None the less, due to the vigorous efforts of the Soviet Union and other peace-loving States a number of treaties and agreements limiting the arms race in major areas have been concluded. These are the 1963 Moscow Treaty Banning Nuclear-Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and under water, the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear weapons, the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems and the SALT I Agreement, signed in 1972, and the 1979 SALT II treaty. All these treaties, which have served in large measure to reinforce strategic stability, became possible because political realism was also displayed by the then leaders of the united States and other western countries. It is not the fault of the Soviet Union that local conflicts break out and are raging in various regions of the world.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“we have been proposing and continue to propose that agreement should be reached on renouncing all weapons of mass destruction, reducing and totally eliminating their existing stockpiles, and cutting down armed forces and conventional armaments. Our country has come out with a proposed on general and complete disarmament under strict international control. These radical proposals have yet to be implemented, and it is the United States and some other NATO countries, rather than the soviet union, that are to blame for this fact. It is precisely because of their refusal to follow the example of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, which has also unilaterally pledged not to be the first to use nuclear weapons, that the threat of nuclear war continues to hang over the world.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“It has been denied that opportunity because the intellectual and material resources needed to find a radical solution to these problems common to all mankind are being squandered on the arms race. Not a single twist in the arms race spiral was initiated by the Soviet Union. It is only in response to actions of the other side and out of legitimate concern for our own security and that of our allies and friends, concern for international security as a whole, that we have developed or are developing this or that weapon system. Moreover, as early as 1946, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics proposed that nuclear weapons should be banned for all time. We have been advocating this ever since, and this remains our position now.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“There is a great possibility of the arms race acquiring an uncontrollable and irreversible character. In the final analysis, this is the road leading to a nuclear catastrophe. It is also alarming that of late it has not been possible to settle a single regional conflict or to eliminate .a single hotbed of military tension. In the meantime the flames of "local" wars, more often than not undeclared, have been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands, and indeed hundreds of thousands. Mankind is suffering through being denied the opportunity to deal with such urgent problems as those relating to food, ecology, energy, population and the constantly widening economic gap between the developed and the developing countries.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“As a result, much of the system of international relations is out of joint and the risk of war has sharply increased. My delegation wishes to set forth the views of the soviet Union regarding the reasons for the current unfavorable development of the situation in the world and ways of remedying the existing state of affairs. It can be remedied only if there is an understanding, as has been pointed out by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, of the "realities and the dangers which we will inevitably face tomorrow if today those who can and must take the only correct decision evade the responsibility incumbent on them". We perceive the greatest peril in the fact that the nuclear arms race has, at it were, made a fresh start and is forging ahead. Added to this there is the threat of the arms race spreading to outer space.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“The greatest hopes for stable peace emerged in the 1970 s, which went down in history as the decade of detente. Detente was based on the general recognition that it was inadmissible in the nuclear age to seek to attain political and ideological goals by means of war and that the policy of achieving the military superiority of some states over others or of one social system over another was wrong and dangerous. The countries of the socialist community and many other States have every right to take pride in having been the architects and engineers of detente. Yet in the late 1970s and early 1980s the world once again witnessed a stepping up of the activities of the forces which never supported the policy of detente and are now seeking to undo its most important accomplishments.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“In the complex and rapidly changing world of today, which is the scene of a continuing struggle between the forces of progress and the forces of reaction, between the forces of the future and those of the past, the development of relations among States, including the major Powers possessing the greatest military potential, has followed s changing and at times zigzag course. Aggravations of international tension have alternated with periods when that tension abated; international crises have sprung up and have been overcome, some of them being so acute as to bring mankind to the verge of catastrophe. It would be fair to say that many a time when the international barometer has forecast a storm the United Nations has raised its voice in warning and has been able to take practical steps to reduce the threat.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“The past 40 years have been a period of rapid progress in the scientific and technological revolution, which is not only drastically changing our concepts of the structure of the universe and of matter itself but is also creating ever broader opportunities for meeting the spiritual and material needs of every individual and of all mankind. Even today the achievements of science, if they are used for constructive purposes, make it possible to resolve almost any economic problem. However, they can also generate unprecedented dangers whenever they are used for developing means of annihilation and destruction.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“Over an extremely short historical span of time the hurricane of the peoples' liberation struggle has destroyed and eliminated from the face of the earth the colonial system of imperialism. Over 100 new States have emerged from its ruins. Today they are full-fledged Members of the United Nations. The forces that are at work to strengthen peace and prevent war are constantly growing. At present their struggle involves people of all continents, of all generations and occupations, and with the most diverse political beliefs.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“The United Nations, whose birth was the natural result of that great victory and whose work has represented the world's major hope for preventing new wars, has now been in existence for 40 years. Today it can be stated with great satisfaction that those have been 40 years without a world war. In that period truly gigantic changes have taken place in the world. These changes include the establishment and development of the world socialist system - a system of States whose very political and social nature excludes the possibility of any interest in war. All the practical activities of the countries of the socialist community in the international arena are based on the policy of the peaceful coexistence of States with different social systems. The role of socialism in world affairs has been steadily increasing.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“Sir, permit me first of all to congratulate you upon your election to the high post of President of the united Nations General Assembly for the fortieth session and to wish you success in your work. I should like to address the delegation of Mexico, whose country has suffered such a terrible natural disaster, entailing heavy loss of life and tremendous destruction, On behalf of the Soviet leadership and on behalf of all the Soviet people, we should like once again to convey to the Government and people of Mexico our most profound condolences. Four decades have gone by since the victory of the freedom-loving peoples over German fascism and Japanese militarism.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)