Director-General Visits Vienna for High-Level Meetings and Addresses Two Public Forums

The Director-General, Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü, visited the Austrian capital on 18 and 19 March 2013 where he met with high-level Austrian and international officials and addressed two public events on issues related to the work of the OPCW.

In a meeting with Dr Reinhold Lopatka, Austria’s State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, the Director-General provided an update on global implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and an overview of the main issues to be discussed in the forthcoming Third Review Conference, to be held from 8 to 19 April.

The Director-General also met with the heads of three leading Vienna-based agencies: Tibor Tóth, the Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO); Yukiya Amano, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); and Lamberto Zannier, the Secretary General of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE).

During his stay in Vienna Director-General Üzümcü addressed an Academic Forum organised by the CTBTO on the future of education, speaking on the topic of Knowledge Transfer, International Organisations and Global Education. He also visited the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCDNP), an initiative launched in 2010 by Austria’s Foreign Ministry and managed by the Monterey Institute of International Studies. The Director-General met with the VCDNP director, Ms Elena Sokova, and delivered an address on The Chemical Weapons Convention: Making Disarmament Happen to a special gathering of interested experts and officials.