UN General Assembly
1987

Few ages have faced such frightening challenges. To retreat from the nuclear race requires greater courage than to persist in a contest to exhibit military superiority. To extend this rivalry and to put weapons in outer space is to thwart the powerful development potential of the last frontier of mankind. Sri Lanka hopes to continue with other nations its efforts to reach consensus on a resolution that would help to prevent an arms race and to promote peaceful co-operation in outer space in the interest of all humanity. Another initiative in disarmament and international security in which Sri Lanka has been engaged is the implementation of the Declaration of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace. We have offered to host one of the Ad Hoc Committee meetings in Colombo next year. This meeting is of course to be distinguished from the Colombo Conference on the Indian Ocean, which is now scheduled to take place by 1990.