UN General Assembly
1997

year 2000, hoping that by then the Treaty will have become universal. That Treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test- Ban Treaty, the efforts of States to reduce their arsenals and the establishment of new nuclear-weapon-free zones are all important elements that will help prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and eventually achieve general and complete nuclear disarmament. True to its pacifist principles, the Republic of Paraguay has been following the Ottowa process with great interest. We recently took part in the Oslo Diplomatic Conference, which adopted the definitive text of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, and we supported the majority position of the principal States to seek appropriate and effective legal mechanisms to prohibit the manufacture, use and distribution of the cruel devices of death and pain that are anti-personnel landmines. We congratulate the international community on that decisive step, and we reaffirm our unswerving decision to sign the Convention. We urge other Governments to do the