UN General Assembly
1982

The Soviet Union proposes that the General Assembly declare the destruction of peaceful nuclear facilities with conventional weapons equivalent to an attack involving the use of nuclear weapons that is to say, it should equate such destruction with those actions which the United Nations has already qualified as the gravest crime against humanity. The question of a speedy elimination of chemical weapons presents itself in all its magnitude. This weapon is one of the means of mass annihilation. The unrestrained build-up of chemical weapons in the West, far from enhancing anybody's security, is only aggravating the risk of military conflicts with the use of these lethal weapons. The Soviet Union has consistently been advocating the exclusion of chemical weapons from the arsenals of States. The relevant proposals submitted by it have been referred to the Committee on Disarmament. We hope that its members will proceed, with all due sense of responsibility, to the elaboration of an international convention on the prohibition and elimination of these barbaric weapons. There is an increasing danger that the arms race will acquire a qualitatively new dimension unless the necessary measures are urgently taken. Washington is now planning a military thrust into outer space. We are convinced that the arms race must not be permitted to spread into the boundless expanses of outer space. The United Nations can and must play its part in this respect.