"Croatia is confident that only an effective multilateral approach based on the rule of law can ensure an appropriate response to the complex global challenges and threats faced by the world today," Drobnjak said at a session of the UN General Assembly committee in charge of disarmament and international security.
Noting that weapons of mass destruction posed a great threat to humankind, the Croatian ambassador advocated continuing support to multilateral agreements in order to curb this threat.
He said that Croatia had taken many steps in its efforts to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including introducing stringent legal provisions regulating export, strengthening state institutions and increasing its participation in international and regional efforts aimed at combating arms proliferation.
Drobnjak said that Croatia wanted to see concrete results at a conference on the implementation of the non-proliferation treaty and that it supported a comprehensive treaty banning nuclear tests.
Speaking of the problem of land mines, Drobnjak said that Croatia was planning to clear its territory of land mines by 2009.
The ambassador reiterated Croatia's readiness to host a meeting in 2005 of countries signatories to the agreement banning land mines, which was signed in Ottawa in 1997. He added that this would be an opportunity for Southeast European countries, where millions of land mines had been sown during armed conflicts in the 1990s, to meet for the first time as signatories to the agreement.
As regards the prevention of proliferation of small arms, Drobnjak said that Croatia was in the final stage of ratification of the Protocol on Firearms.