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Lithuania starts work in the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

On May 12, Lithuania begins its work in the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Lithuania was elected to this important post for the period 2024-2026 at the annual conference of States Parties of the Chemical Weapons Convention last November.

Most conference participants supported Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine’s nominations, while Russia was not elected to the Executive Council for the first time in the organisation’s history. 

“It is high time every international organisation wishing to maintain its relevance and credibility responded in a principled manner to the changes taking place in the world and stopped treating aggressors as equal partners at the table of these organisations,” the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Gabrielius Landsbergis said in November 2023. 

There are 193 OPCW members. The results of the vote confirmed the position of a majority of OPCW member states that military aggression against another member of the same organisation, Ukraine, and gross, systematic violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention could not be compatible with the duties of international institutions and cast a shadow on the credibility of the whole organisation. 

As a member of the Executive Council, Lithuania will directly and actively support the position of like-minded countries and defend its interests in this organisation. Lithuania will continue to consistently seek attention from the international community to chemical munitions dumped in the Baltic and other seas, as well as to promote cooperation and exchange of information on this issue. Lithuania will try to prove once again that it is an active and responsible member of the international community.