During the week of 4 October 2020, the United States and allies organized a virtual training for scientists, security officials, and first responders on detection and response to incidents involving the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that is suspected as a means of assassination, reports the U.S. Department of States. The report points […]

What Happened: In his opening statement to the 24th Conference of the States Parties at the World Forum at The Hague in the Netherlands, from 25-29 November 2019, the OPCW Director-General H.E. Mr. Fernando Arias reported that progress has been made in the project to build a new OPCW Centre for Chemistry and Technology (ChemTech […]

Over the next two weeks, Member States of Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will convene in The Hague for the Twenty-Third Session of the Conference of the States Parties (CSP-23), which opened today, followed by the Fourth Review Conference (RC-4), which begins on Wednesday, 21 November. The aim of these sessions is […]

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — 29 October 2018 — National Authority representatives along with security and legal experts from the Sahel and West Africa identified possible ways of strengthening their capacities for addressing chemical terrorism during the workshop on the role of implementing legislation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in addressing threats posed by non-State […]

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – 1 December 2017 – South Sudan announced today that it “has all but concluded the process of joining the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)”. Upon joining the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), countries become Member States of the OPCW and enjoy the full benefits of the Convention. H.E. Mr […]

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — 15 September 2017 — During his visit to Yaoundé, Cameroon from 12-14 September, the Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü, was received by Prime Minister, H.E. Mr Philémon Yang, and met with the Minister of External Relations, H.E. Mr Lejeune Mbella Mbella. The […]

03.03.2015 — check against delivery– Mr President, Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen, We are living in tense times. The Ukraine conflict, Syria, Iraq, the advance of the ISIS terrorist group in the Middle East and Boko Haram in Africa – we face a large number of international crises, a situation we have not had to deal with before in […]

Syria’s regime says it will need at least a year to dismantle its chemical weapons arsenal, but if Libya’s experience is anything to go by, this is a hopelessly optimistic forecast. Damascus has provided the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) with a full inventory of its chemical arsenal, in order to […]

The OPCW organised a special 2-day induction programme on 12 and 13 September 2013 for a group of senior government representatives from the Federal Republic of Somalia to assist country’s implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The delegation was headed by H.E. Ambassador Yusuf Mohamed Ismail Bari-Bari, Permanent Representative of Somalia to the United […]

On 28 June 2013 the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force for Somalia, making it the 189th State Party to the treaty. Somalia had earlier deposited its instrument of ratification with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, on 29 May, and 30 days later the Convention entered into force for the country. This has reduced […]