1. Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs Choi Jong-moon will attend the 84th session of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Executive Council, to be held in The Hague, the Netherlands, from March 7 to 10, as head of the ROK delegation and deliver a keynote address.

o In his keynote address, Deputy Minister Choi will condemn the recent incident, where a chemical weapon, a weapon of mass destruction strictly banned under international law, was used to kill a person at a civil airport. He will also urge countries which have not joined the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), including North Korea, to join the CWC.

2. On the sidelines of the Executive Council meeting, Deputy Minister Choi will also meet with OPCW Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü and representatives from members of the OPCW Executive Council, including the US, Japan, Australia and the UK, and discuss ways for the international community to respond to North Korea’s chemical weapons threat.


* unofficial translation