News

Lithuania’s Permanent Representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Ambassador Vaidotas Verba assumed the year-long chairmanship of the annual Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention. The annual meeting of the OPCW, also called the Conference of the States Parties, is the principal decision-making body of the OPCW that joins together the representatives of 188 States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

During the Conference of the States Parties, the representatives discuss and endorse the OPCW budget and outline the guidelines for the next year’s policy of the organisation, they discuss possibilities for the international cooperation regarding the terms of destruction of chemical weapons and deliberate various aspects of the Chemical Weapons Convention, as well as they exchange opinions on the issues of disarmament.

The chair of the Conference plays an important political and coordinating role in searching for the solutions on the most important issues that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons faces, ensures the dialogue between the member states and the Secretariat of the organization, holds formal and informal meetings in order to ensure the development of the political dialogue of States Parties and maintains relations with such countries, which are aspiring for the membership in the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, as Iraq.

Lithuania’s nomination as the chair of the annual Conference of the States Parties is recognition of Lithuania’s input into the prohibition of chemical weapons.

Lithuania seeks to strengthen the capacities of the international community to respond to the incidents that are related to chemical weapons and to prevent various threats, including the environmental ones. Lithuania also consistently raises the issue of sea-dumped chemical weapons and consolidates international forces to solve this issue. Lithuania has already held a number of international seminars and meetings to discuss the threats of the sea-dumped chemical weapons and means to address this issue.

Lithuania has initiated the international cooperation to prepare and adopt the United Nations resolution on sea-dumped chemical weapons in 2010.

The chairmanship of Lithuania started today and will continue until 1 December 2010.