Peruvian Foreign Affairs Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde told the General Assembly a non-aggression treaty would counter "massive and costly purchases of arms" by South American countries that could use those resources to fight poverty and development issues.

Belaunde indicated his concern was not directed at neighbor Chile, one of the countries spotlighted in recent reports of large-scale arms acquisitions worth billions of dollars. Brazil and Venezuela also have contracted to buy weapons from European suppliers worth tens of billions of dollars, and other South American countries are exploring increased arms purchases on easy credit terms offered by the suppliers.

European government-backed suppliers have plied potential Latin American government buyers with a heady mix of easy lines of credit, offers of technology transfers, joint production projects and global sharing of customers for weaponry, either part-assembled or wholly manufactured on Latin American soil.

The arms-buying spree spans Latin America's ideological spectrum and includes populist socialist Venezuela, center-left Brazil, free market-oriented Chile and less resourceful but aspiring defense shoppers, including cash-strapped Argentina.

Brazil, Chile and Venezuela argue the arms purchases are needed to modernize their armed forces.

The United States and Uruguay expressed their concerns over the arms buildup when Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington in mid-September.

Peruvian delegates at the United Nations cited latest studies by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute to back up their call for a halt to arms purchases in South America. SIPRI said Latin American countries spent more than $48 billion on arms purchases in 2008. From 1999 to 2008 that spending increased by 50 percent, almost double the rate of increase of the previous decade, SPRI said.

Military spending in Central America increased at a lower rate of 22 percent, said the institute.

SIPRI says the arms spending has been spurred by revenue gains made by South American commodity exporters.

Brazil, Chile, Venezuela and Ecuador benefited from recent surges in prices of copper, soya and oil and quickly raised their military spending. "Arms transfers to South America were 94 percent higher in 2004-2008 than in 1999-2003," SIPRI said.

Chile was the second-largest importer of conventional weapons in the Americas for the period 2004-2008 and the 11th-largest in the world, up from 36th place for 1999-2003, said the institute. Chile's defense budget nearly doubled in size between 1997 and 2007, funding a wave of major arms acquisitions under an ambitious force modernization program.

Venezuela was the third-largest importer of conventional weapons in the Americas and the 18th-largest in the world, up from 55th place for 1999-2003. In 2008 Venezuela took the final delivery of several weapon systems ordered from Russia in 2006 and 2007, and this month signed further deals for arms purchases from Moscow.

Peru's call for a halt to the arms buildup and a non-aggression treaty has not gone unchallenged.

In a response to Belaunde, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said, "Chile is very happy with the current status quo. We do not have an aggression policy, on the contrary we have a defense-dissuasive policy," MercoPress reported.

Bachelet said she preferred "mutual confidence-building" measures over a "non-aggression pact," which, according to her, belongs to "another time."

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