UNITED NATIONS REGIONAL MEETING ON SMALL ARMS PROGRAMME OF ACTION

 

TO BE HELD IN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 22-23 JUNE

 

NEW YORK, 18 June (Office for Disarmament Affairs) ‑‑ A United Nations meeting on the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects for States of the Pacific region will be held on 22 and 23 June in Sydney, Australia.

The meeting is organized by the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, including its Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific, in partnership with the Government of Australia, which will be hosting the event.  The Governments of Japan and New Zealand are providing additional support.

Officials from the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, as well as representatives of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, have been invited to participate.

Duncan Kerr SC MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, will make welcoming remarks on behalf of the Australian Government.  Pablo Macedo of Mexico, recently appointed Chair-designate of the Fourth Biennial Meeting of States on the Programme of Action (2010), is expected to attend the meeting, as are representatives from civil society.

The meeting in Australia is the first of a regional series planned in follow-up to the report of the Third Biennial Meeting of States, held in New York from 14 to 18 July 2008 (see http://disarmament.un.org/cab/bms3/1BMS3Pages/1thirdBMS.html).  The second meeting of the series is scheduled for 8 and 9 July in Kigali, Rwanda, for States of the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes region and Southern Africa.

For further information, contact Daniël Prins, e-mail:  UNODA-web@un.org.

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For information media • not an official record