Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü (left) and Dr Karl-Heinz Brunner, SDP, of the Bundestag Subcommittee on Disarmament.
The Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü delivered a key note address at the opening of the Third International Symposium on Development of Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Defence Capabilities in Berlin, Germany on 20 October 2015. In his speech, he underlined the need for concerted action to address the serious threat of the use of chemical weapons by non-state actors.
The Director-General stated that the world community is facing the time “when extremists are alleged to have developed and used chemical weapons to tragic effect”. He noted that “[w]hen it comes to chemical weapons, non-state actors do not constrain themselves to the same taboos and norms that States do.” To meet this challenge, the OPCW Director-General recommended a focussed attention on three areas: limiting the permissive operating environment for those who wish to fabricate or use chemical weapons; strengthening chemical safety and security; and involving international organisations in combating this threat adding that “It is my firm conviction that realising a world free of chemical weapons will not be possible if we do not cooperate with one another.”
During the visit to Berlin, the OPCW Director-General met senior government officials that included Dr Katrin Suder, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Defence; Dr Markus Ederer, State Secretary of the Federal Foreign Office; Dr Christoph Heusgen, Director General of Foreign and Security Development Policy, Federal Chancery; Dr Patricia Flor, Federal Government Commissioner for Disarmament and Arms Control, and other senior officials from the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the German National Authority for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The Director-General also visited the Bundestag where he met with Dr Ute Finckh-Krämer, SDP, and Dr Karl-Heinz Brunner, SDP, of the Bundestag Subcommittee on Disarmament.
In the meetings the Director-General discussed the progress made towards the implementation of the CWC and the current status of the OPCW’s work to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons programme. Ambassador Üzümcü expressed appreciation to the German Government for its significant contribution to the Syria mission as well as the strong support that Germany provides to the Organisation’s work.