As all States Parties agree that the Protocol is an important objective for the international community, and the deadline is approaching, you should move forward as quickly as possible, but not losing from sightwithout losing sight of the importance of producing a legal product of high quality. Time , the scarcest arms control commodity is available as well. Although the three months scheduled for negotiations in 2000, is2000 are shorter than the time spent in the final stages of CWC and CTBT negotiations, they may still be sufficient for you to reach a critical mass in the negotiations. A real encouragement in this respect is the dedication of delegations to negotiate in earnest, which might significantly compensate for shortage of negotiating time. No political impetus or extra negotiating time will bring negotiations to a successful conclusion without substantive problems being addressed in a meaningful way.
Issues are complex within their narrow context.
As for compliance measures, the time has come to have a holistic approach as to how declarations, visits and investigations might work together in a synergistic way. The possible relevance of declarations for co-operation measures will have to be clarified. The right delineation will have to be established between unusual and natural outbreaks of diseases, the latter being of no concern for the protocol. Visits can be consolidated only through a nuanced dialogue free of clich s. Instead of trying to remove en bloc whole categories of visits in our negotiations, at this stage it might be more appropriate to address details, which could bring fine-tuned types of visits within the realm of acceptance for each and every delegation.