Kenya is continuing to play a leading role in efforts to strengthen a proposed global arms trade treaty as negotiations enter their final days with key issues still unresolved.

The members of Kenya’s delegation to the talks taking place at United Nations headquarters say they are hopeful that consensus will be reached on effective arms-control provisions prior to the scheduled July 27 deadline.

“Nobody is safe” under the current absence of arms trade regulations, warns David Kimaiyo, director of the Kenya team seeking control of small arms.

Ready availability of illicit weapons potentially poses a mortal threat to every Kenyan, he observes.

Mr Kimaiyo acknowledges that an enforceable treaty governing conventional arms transfers will be difficult to achieve, given the rules under which the negotiations are being conducted.

A requirement for consensus means that any of the more than 100 countries represented at the talks has the power to scuttle strictures not to its liking.

“If what we wind up with is not a perfect treaty, it will at least move us to another level,” Mr Kimaiyo says.

Kenya has been in the forefront among African nations during the past six years of preparatory work culminating in the month-long talks now nearing an end in New York.

Deputy UN ambassador Dr Josephine Ojiambo says Kenya has been working steadily on international arms trade issues since 2006 following the failure of an effort at the UN to establish a treaty.

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