The Hague, 3 November 1997

Director-General meets with United Nations Secretary-General and holds a series of high-level meeting in New York

The Director-General of the OPCW, Mr José M. Bustani, recently visited New York and addressed the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on 16 October. During his stay in New York, he also called on the President of the United Nations General Assembly, the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, H.E. Mr Genády Udovénko, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi A. Annan. The Secretary-General, who is the Depositary of the Convention, was briefed on the sound progress which has been made by the OPCW in implementing the Convention since operations started in May this year.

Mr Bustani also took the opportunity to hold a series of high level meetings to promote the universality of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Bilateral meetings were held with representatives of a number of signatory states which have yet to ratify the Convention. The Director-General stressed the importance of all these states taking the final step and becoming full members of the OPCW as early as possible. Mr Bustani met with representatives of Bolivia, Colombia, Indonesia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand, Ukraine and Venezuela.

The Director-General also met with representatives of many non-signatory states, and stressed upon the political, economic and technological benefits of acceding to the Convention. These states included Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Botswana, Egypt, Eritrea, Jordan, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Solomon Islands, Sudan, Syria and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Despite his best endeavours, the Director-General was unable to meet the representatives of Lebanon, Libya and North Korea. However, the representative of Jordan announced the decision of King Hussein to ratify the Convention in the coming days and expressed the hope that other Arab States in the region would soon follow suit. Jordan and Pakistan have since ratified the Convention.

Mr Bustani also met with representatives of Albania, Brazil and Uzbekistan, which are States Parties to the Convention, to update them on the progress in implementing the Convention as well as to be informed about national implementation in those states. In addition, the Director-General, who was also interviewed by the media, met with the Head of the Centre for Disarmament Affairs, Mr P. Davinic, the Vice Chairman of the UN International Civil Service Commission, Mr Vagegas, and the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM, Mr Richard Butler.