Ambassador Ezequiel Sabor, President of the Council of OPANAL, delivering his statement at the 74º United Nations General Assembly First Committee.
New York, October 16, 2019. The President of the Council of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL), Ambassador Ezequiel Sabor, participated in the General Debate of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly First Committee - Disarmament and International Security.
The First Committee is responsible for discussing exclusively the issues of disarmament and others related to international security. The First Committee is chaired by the Ambassador Sacha Llorenti, Permanent Representative of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Nations, and is held from October 7 to November 8, 2019, at the UN Headquarters, in New York.
In his speech, Ambassador Sabor highlighted the fact that "[...] intergovernmental organizations [...] in the First Committee are usually in a very limited number" and that "OPANAL is, perhaps, the only one entirely devoted to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation".
In that sense, Ambassador Sabor recalled that the Treaty of Tlatelolco is a precursor to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and therefore highlighted “the interest of OPANAL Member States to preserve and strengthen the NPT by means of a succesful Review Conference in 2020.
On the other hand, Ambassador Sabor emphasized the importance of the Fourth Conference of States Parties and Signatories of the Treaties establishing Nuclear Weapons Free Zones and Mongolia, which will be held next year, and reiterated OPANAL's commitment to the success of this important event.
Finally, Ambassador Sabor referred to the topic of “Education for disarmament and non-proliferation”, highlighting the courses organized by OPANAL held in Uruguay, Bolivia, Guatemala and Nicaragua, which had trained around 150 government officials, as well as the internship program that is also part of the educational effort of OPANAL.
Read the intervention of OPANAL at the First Committee: Español/English