PREPARATORY COMMITTEE FOR 2010 NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY REVIEW CONFERENCE

TO MEET IN GENEVA, 28 APRIL - 9 MAY

NEW YORK, 25 April (Office for Disarmament Affairs) -- The Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons will hold its second session from 28 April to 9 May in the Assembly Hall at the United Nations Office at Geneva, Switzerland.  This is the second of three sessions of the Preparatory Committee that will be held prior to the 2010 Review Conference.

This session, which is open to all parties to the Treaty, observer States, specialized agencies, international and regional intergovernmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations, will address substantive and procedural issues related to the Treaty and the upcoming Review Conference in 2010.  The Chairman of the second session is Ambassador Volodymyr Yel’chenko of Ukraine.

The purpose of the session is to consider principles, objectives and ways to promote the full implementation of the Treaty, as well as its universality, and to factually summarize its results and submit it to the third session of the Preparatory Committee, which has the task of taking into account the deliberations of the previous sessions and making recommendations to the Review Conference.

The Treaty, which entered into force in 1970 and was extended indefinitely in 1995, requires that review conferences be held every five years.

The Treaty is regarded as the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.  It is designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to further the goal of nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament, and to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

For accreditation and further information, please contact Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief, Press and External Relations Section, United Nations Information Service at Geneva, tel.: +41 22 917 2336; e-mail:  eponomareva@unog.ch.

Some meetings of the Conference may be closed to the media.  Further information on the second session of the Preparatory Committee may be found at www.un.org/NPT2010/SecondSession.

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For information media • not an official record