China appealed on Thursday to all members of the Conference on Disarmament to show political willingness and courage by agreeing on a program of work to begin substantive works on prevention of an arms race in outer space, nuclear disarmament and other relevant issues.

"The recent developments concerning outer space are worrisome and require more urgent efforts to start the work on preventing an arms race in outer space," Hu Xiaodi, ambassador on disarmament affairs of China, told a session of the Conference on Disarmament (CD), the international disarmament body, in Geneva.

The delegations of China and Russia circulated on Thursday a joint thematic non-paper to promote better understanding of their positions and the relevant working paper they tabled in June, 2002.

The working paper says that China and Russia stand for the negotiation, in the CD, of an international legal instrument prohibiting the deployment of weapons in outer space, and the use of threat of force against outer space objects.

This thematic non-paper on definition issues, together with two other non-papers circulated in August last year on existing international legal instruments and on verification aspects of prevention of an arms race in outer space, was made in response to other delegations' suggestion to the working paper.

"We hope that this thematic non-paper will help people pay more attention and give more thoughts to the issue of prevention of an arms race in outer space and serve as food for thought for our negotiation of a relevant future legal instrument in the CD," Ambassador Hu told the conference.

Source: Xinhua