Vatican City (AsiaNews) – "It is clear that the Holy See is in favour, not of weapons, but of disarmament and peace," said Vatican Secretary of State Card Tarcisio Bertone in response to a question from a journalist on North Korea's nuclear testing.

Cardinal Bertone, who was speaking at the opening ceremony of the Salesian Pontifical University new academic year, added that the "Holy See will continue to work for what advances peace".

His words were echoed by a statement made by the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace and released today which expressed its "full support" to a proposal to set up a working group within the United Nations that would prepare a treaty to limit conventional weapons trade.

In the communiqué, the Holy See "urges the international community to assume its responsibility in establishing an obligatory legal framework aimed at regulating the trade of conventional weapons of any type, as well as of know-how and technology for their production."

The statement, signed by Renato Raffaele Cardinal Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, the Council's secretary, joins those of others who are taking part in the discussions over a resolution entitled "Effective International Control over the Import, Export and Transfer of Conventional Arms" scheduled for the 1st Committee of the United Nations General Assembly currently underway in New York.

In its submission, the Vatican notes that "conventional weapons, including light arms and those of small calibre, are an element of every international or civil conflict, as well as of every illegitimate use of force, and they constitute one of the most common instruments in most violations of human rights and disrespect for humanitarian law." In fact, "[t]he international system of non-proliferation and arms control, especially of those of mass destruction, has been one of the principal means which diplomacy has used to avoid conflicts on planetary scale, but it has not served to avoid regional, and even less, local conflicts."

After highlighting the fact that "many millions of victims in conflicts over the last 60 years have been caused by conventional, and especially, by light weapons," the Vatican statement goes on to say that "the absence of effective monitoring systems on arms trade has a negative impact not only on peace processes, reconciliation and post-conflict reconstruction, but also on the stability of institutions and on sustainable development."

"Weapons," the statement said by way of conclusion, "cannot be considered as any other good exchanged on the global, regional or national market. Their possession, production and trade have deep ethical and social implications and they must be regulated by paying due attention to specific principles of the moral and legal order."