On 19 April 2005, H.E. Mr Michel Barnier, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic, visited the headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague.
The OPCW Director-General, Ambassador Rogelio Pfirter, welcomed the Foreign Minister and briefed him on the present status of the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) by the 167 OPCW Member States.
Foreign Minister Barnier, the first French Foreign Minister to visit the OPCW headquarters, reaffirmed France’s unwavering commitment to a total ban on chemical weapons and strong support of the OPCW’s mandate to eliminate these weapons, as well as to ensure that they never re-appear.
On behalf of the Organisation, Director-General Pfirter expressed his appreciation and gratitude to the French Republic for its long-standing and active advocacy of the CWC. This engagement brought forth the successful 1989 Conference of States Parties to the 1925 Geneva Protocol and other Interested States on the prohibition of chemical weapons, held in Paris in January 1989. He recalled that this Conference proved to be a watershed event in the international effort to achieve the universal renunciation of chemical weapons and facilitated the conclusion of a convention on their prohibition and destruction. In 1993, the CWC was formally opened for signature in Paris, where one hundred and thirty nations signed it.
The Director-General recognized that, since the Convention’s Entry into Force on 29 April 1997, France continues to support the CWC’s universality by encouraging States not yet party to the Convention to join it without delay, while contributing political and financial resources, as well as technical expertise, to assist States Parties, engaged in developing and enhancing their national capacity to ensure that chemical weapons are eliminated.
Foreign Minister Barnier and Director-General Pfirter also discussed the challenges being addressed by the OPCW, such as the verified destruction of the global chemical weapons stockpile and the potential threat posed by chemical weapons proliferation.
09/2005