UN General Assembly
1993

I wish to emphasize that since May 1992 - that is, since the signing of the Lisbon Protocol - we have never given any grounds for anyone to doubt the honesty, logic and consistency of our actions. Of all the States which are the nuclear heirs to the Soviet Union, Belarus was the first, and still the only one, to have rejected nuclear weapons in practice. Moreover, it did so without any preconditions or reservations. Thus, for the first time in the history of the international community, a sovereign State has voluntarily renounced a real opportunity to possess and develop nuclear potential. This is truly a large-scale contribution by Belarus to global security and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. I wish to emphasize once again that our words and deeds are not at variance. Having put forward from this lofty rostrum in 1990 the idea of creating a non-nuclear belt from the Baltic to the Black Sea, we have, to the best of our abilities, been transforming our territory into part of such a belt. We hope