PREPARATORY COMMITTEE FOR 2001 SMALL ARMS CONFERENCE ELECTS VICE-CHAIRMEN, RAPPORTEUR

Press Release
DC/2685

PREPARATORY COMMITTEE FOR 2001 SMALL ARMS CONFERENCE ELECTS VICE-CHAIRMEN, RAPPORTEUR

The Preparatory Committee for the 2001 United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects this afternoon elected 10 additional Vice-Chairmen and its Rapporteur.

The Vice-Chairmen elected today are: Dace Dobraja (Latvia); Samuel Insanally (Guyana); Denis Dangue Rewaka (Gabon); Alioune Diagne (Senegal); Ismail Khairat (Egypt); Fares Kunidwa (Kenya); Pierre Charasse (France); Mario Duarte (Portugal); Gunnar Lindemann (Norway); and Herbert Calhoun (United States).

Mark Gaillard (Canada) will serve as Rapporteur of the Committee.

At the beginning of the session on Monday, 28 February, the following were elected Vice-Chairmen: Shen Guofang (China); Makmur Widodo (Indonesia); Hamid Baeidi Nejad (Iran); Mitsuro Donowaki (Japan); Luiz Filipe de Macedo Soares (Brazil); Juan Miguel Miranda (Peru); Richard Pierce (Jamaica); Nury Vargas (Costa Rica); Yahsar Aliyev (Azerbaijan); Alyaksandr Sychov (Belarus); Valeri Kuchynski (Ukraine); and Przemyslaw Wyganowski (Poland).

The African Group and the Asian Group of States are each expected to provide a candidate for approval tomorrow, which will bring the total number of Vice- Chairmen to 24.

The Preparatory Committee has been requested by the General Assembly to decide, during this session, on the dates and venue of its future sessions, as well as of the Conference. It has also been mandated to make recommendations to the Conference on all relevant matters, which will include a programme of action. It will also decide on the modalities for the attendance of non-governmental organizations at its sessions.

The Committee is scheduled to conclude its current session tomorrow, 3 March.

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