Reaching Critical Will

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Concluding remarks by outgoing President Ahmet Üzümcü of Turkey
to the Conference on Disarmament 13th March 2008

Unofficial Transcript

Let me express our pleasure and the honor that we felt to preside this august body during four weeks. The Conference on Disarmament has a leading role in addressing the security challenges confronting our nations and we felt privileged for having chaired these plenary where important declarations were made.

As stated by Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister a week ago “we live in a world where security has become indivisible” I want to express my gratitude to my predecessor of Ambassador Labidi of Tunisia who held extensive consultations with each of you and my best wishes to the next president Ambassador of Ukraine. I would also like to thank my other fellow P6 colleagues. My delegation has been engaged with them in a fruitful cooperation and we look forward to pursing our joint efforts for the rest of the session.

My sincere thanks goes to the Secretary General of the Conference Mr. Sergei Ordzhonikidze, His Deputy, all the members of the secretariat for their kind assistance in organizing and carrying out the work of the conference and also the interpreters for their hard work.

I thank all delegations to the Conference on Disarmament for their contributions and active cooperation with the Presidency. Through their respective permanent representatives let me also express my gratitude to all countries who have sent dignitaries to this august body during Turkey’s presidency. The CD is the single multilateral disarmament negotiation body which brings us together and the contribution of each member is equally important. I am confident that it will remain so.