President of Senegal Visits the OPCW

14 November 2012
The President of the Republic of Senegal, H.E. Mr Macky Sall, and OPCW Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü 
The Director-General commends President Sall for Senegal’s commitment to the Chemical Weapons Convention and for its support to the work of the OPCW

The President of the Republic of Senegal, H.E. Mr Macky Sall, and OPCW Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü
The Director-General commends President Sall for Senegal’s commitment to the Chemical Weapons Convention and for its support to the work of the OPCW

The President of the Republic of Senegal, H.E. Mr Macky Sall, visited the OPCW today and met with Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü and OPCW Permanent Representatives: H.E. Mr Willy Debuck of Belgium, Vice-Chair of the Conference of States Parties; H.E. Mrs Bhaswati Mukherjee of India, Chairperson of the Executive Council; and H.E. Mrs. Ruthie Chepkoech Rono of Kenya, dean of the African caucus of the diplomatic corps in The Hague.

The President’s entourage included Mr Mbaye Ndiaye, Senior Minister, Office of the President; Mme Aminata Toure, Minister of Justice; Mr Mankeur Ndiaye, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Senegalese Abroad; and Mr Oumar Demba Ba, Minister, Diplomatic Adviser to the President, as well as two Members of Parliament and other officials.

In their meeting, the Director-General commended President Sall for Senegal’s commitment to the Chemical Weapons Convention and for its support to the work of the OPCW. Senegal joined the Convention in 1998 and has national implementing legislation covering all key areas of the Convention.  The country has hosted two OPCW capacity building events for the West African sub-region and participated in the ASSISTEX 3 exercise in October 2010. The President appreciated the work being done by the OPCW and reiterated his country’s commitment to the values of the CWC and its universal implementation.

President Sall’s visit to the OPCW is the sixth at this level, following the visits of the Heads of State of Brazil, Chad, the Netherlands, Nigeria, and Turkey.