OPCW Executive Council sits in Hague

From June 29th till July 2nd the Hague will be hosting the 37th session of the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The session will be attended by a Russian delegation, headed by Russia's permanent representative to the OPCW, Russia's Ambassador to the Netherlands Kirill Gevorkyan.

According to a source in the OPCW, the participants will focus on the organization's budget and preparations of a decision on the budget to be adopted at the forthcoming OPCW Conference in November.

Besides, they will consider a document on changes to the organization's financial regulations designed to ensure that the OPCW costs for inspections are covered in time.

The Executive Council will hear three important reports of the technical secretariat: on inspections, on chemical weapons-related objects and industrial enterprises; on providing assistance to OPCW member states in case of use or threat of use of chemical weapons against them; on the organization's activities to develop international cooperation on peaceful use of chemical achievements.

On requests from Libya and Albania the session will consider a possibility of extending transitional periods for them to eliminate chemical weapons. It is a routine request as the countries announced they had chemical weapons after several transitional deadlines stipulated by the Chemical Weapons Convention had expired.

At the same time, both countries intend to eliminate all their chemical weapons by the time envisaged in the Convention, April 29, 2007.

The Executive Council will also consider detailed plans of chemical weapons elimination submitted by the USA and Libya, including to see how they are complied with.

The session's participants will endorse four agreements on the order of inspections on some objects, two agreements being concerned with the USA, one with Singapore and one with Austria.

The Executive Secretariat comprises 41 states. The OPCW today comprises 164 nations, including Russia, who signed and ratified the Convention that came into force on April 29, 1997.

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