This week, the Federal Foreign Office will host an international conference marking the 10 year anniversary of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The event in Berlin, which runs from 25 to 27 April, will be opened by Federal Foreign Minister Dr Frank-Walter Steinmeier, together with the Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ambassador Rogelio Pfirter. Speaking in Berlin in the run-up to the anniversary event, Federal Minister Steinmeier today (24 April) issued the following statement:
"The world urgently needs new impetus in the area of disarmament and non-proliferation. The Chemical Weapons Convention, unique in its field so far, shows what can be achieved through a consistent disarmament policy. The Convention demands the complete destruction of all chemical weapons without exception by a fixed deadline, namely the year 2012. It thus represents an important pillar of disarmament and non-proliferation policy, and strengthens the Federal Government in its consistent and ongoing efforts to promote disarmament and non-proliferation in international fora."
The conference will be attended by representatives of the 41 member states of the OPCW's Executive Council, as well as independent representatives from the fields of politics and science, the European chemical industry and non-governmental organizations.
The symposium is intended to assess the implementation of the CWC so far and identify future challenges. With this event, Germany as Presidency of the EU Council is ushering in preparations at EU level for the next CWC Review Conference, which will be held in The Hague in April 2008.
States in possession of chemical weapons, which include the US and Russia with the largest stockpiles, are in the process of destroying their chemical weapons in national destruction facilities. The Federal Government has been supporting the destruction of Russian chemical weapons since as early as 1992 within the scope of bilateral disarmament cooperation and the G8 initiative "Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction". It has so far provided around 200 million euro for German contributions to the construction of two destruction facilities in Russia. A third facility is set to receive up to 140 million euro in funding.
