UN General Assembly
1984

117. Is not that normal? Is not the pursuit of peace and the means to ensure or preserve it the prime objective of the United Nations and the foremost duty of the international community? The United Nations even dedicated two special sessions of the General Assembly to disarmament, in the work of which we placed great expectations. Unfortunately, crises have continued to cause upheavals in certain regions of the world and are all the more disturbing since they are set against a backdrop of regrettable tensions in East-West relations. 118. Indeed, far from having narrowed, the division between the Western countries and those of the Warsaw Pact seems to have widened, the arms control negotiations are stalled or have been interrupted, and the political dialogue itself seems to be in deadlock, to such an extent that some political commentators do not hesitate to call 1984 "the lost year".