The OPCW Director-General, Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü, addressed a high-level meeting at the United Nations in New York on 24 September 2010 that was convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on “Revitalising the Conference on Disarmament and Taking Forward Multilateral Disarmament Negotiations”.
The meeting brought together ministerial and higher level representatives of UN Member States with senior officials of the IAEA, OPCW and CTBTO. Its purpose was to provide greater political impetus for revitalizing the work of the Conference on Disarmament and other relevant initiatives in the area of peace and security.
In his remarks, Director-General Üzümcü stated that when the Conference on Disarmament concluded the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1992, it accomplished the first treaty banning an entire category of weapons of mass destruction in a non-discriminatory manner and under strict international verification. As key achievements of the CWC, he highlighted that over 60 percent of all declared chemical weapons have already been destroyed under strict verification, and that systematic inspections of the global chemical industry by the OPCW are effectively serving the Convention’s non-proliferation goals.
The Director-General stated that with its institutional capacity and experience the OPCW is uniquely placed to advance the objectives of UN Security Council resolution 1540 and will continue to support programmes organised by the UN Secretariat to promote effective implementation of that resolution. Referring to the Conference on the Middle East WMD free zone in 2012, as envisaged in the Final Document of the 2010 NPT Review Conference, Director-General Üzümcü said the OPCW is also prepared to contribute to the success of this initiative.
He noted that the culture of cooperation at the OPCW offers an example of how multilateral cooperation and consensus building can lead to productive outcomes.
Read the full transcript of the Director-General’s remarks
OPCW News 27/2010, The Hague, 24 September 2010