Press Releases

Beirut, Lebanon Friday, 21 March 2014 Good Morning. I just had a very good meeting with Prime Minister Tamam Salam. I congratulated him on the strong vote of confidence the government secured yesterday in Parliament. The way in which so many have come together in support of the Government is the…

Nowruz is a time when millions of people from Western, Central and South Asia and other regions around the world come together, as they have for over 3000 years, to celebrate the New Year and first day of spring. Inscribed in 2009 on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage…

5 November 2013 - Addressing today the 34th meeting of the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü provided an update on the progress made in the OPCW-UN Joint Mission in Syria since the publication of his first report on 25…

31 October 2013 - The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Mission confirmed today that the government of the Syrian Arab Republic has completed the functional destruction of critical equipment for all of its declared chemical weapons production facilities and…

28 October 2013 - As of 27 October 2013, inspectors of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in the OPCW-UN Joint Mission in Syria completed verification activities at 21 of the 23 chemical weapons related sites declared by Syria. The two remaining sites have not been visited due…

27 October 2013 - On 23 October 2013, the Syrian Arab Republic submitted to the OPCW its formal initial declaration covering its chemical weapons programme. Syria’s submission is in line with the deadline set by the OPCW Executive Council in its decision of 27 September 2013 requiring a complete…

16 October 2013 - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today the appointment of Sigrid Kaag of the Netherlands as Special Coordinator of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)-United Nations Joint Mission to eliminate the chemical weapons programme of the…

14 October 2013 - Today, on 14 October 2013, the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force for the Syrian Arab Republic, making it the 190th State Party to the treaty. Syria deposited its instrument of accession with the United Nations Secretary-General on 14 September. At its 74th session…

11 October 2013 - The advance team from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations has made good progress in verifying the information submitted by the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic on its chemical weapons programme. At the end of the first ten days of…

8 October 2013 - The OPCW Technical Secretariat in The Hague will deploy a second team of inspectors for the mission in Syria that will augment the advance team of OPCW experts, who have been in Syria since 1 October conducting verification and destruction activities. In his opening statement to the…