Director-General Addresses Monterey Institute in USA

29 February 2012
Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü (c) met with Dr. William C. Potter, Director, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (l)  and Ambassador Aruni Wijewardane (r) at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California on 27 February 2012

Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü (c) met with Dr. William C. Potter, Director, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (l) and Ambassador Aruni Wijewardane (r) at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California on 27 February 2012

The OPCW Director-General, Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü, visited the renowned Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California on 27 February 2012 where he discussed potential collaboration with the OPCW and addressed an academic gathering of post-graduate students, visiting fellows and government officials.

The Director-General received a comprehensive briefing from senior staff of the Institute on the activities of its James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) as they relate to the work of the OPCW. The Director-General stressed the desirability of increasing coverage of the Chemical Weapons Convention in educational curricula and offered a variety of collaborative ways to do this, such as developing teaching modules on the Convention for CNS programmes. Other areas of potential collaboration highlighted in the discussions were joint educational outreach, especially on Convention-related science, and use of social media and open source information.

In his public address, the Director-General focussed his remarks [PDF – 37 KB] on the role of the OPCW in responding to alleged uses of chemical weapons. He cited Libya as a recent test case for the Organisation’s capacity to deal with unexpected contingencies, stating that its preparations and coordination procedures “were tested to the full and found workable” but that the situation also highlighted the need for greater co-ordination with other agencies. The Director-General stressed that while the OPCW undergoes changes necessitated by the changing nature of its work, its core competences need to be kept in place in order to be able to respond swiftly and effectively to unforeseen situations such as occurred in Libya.