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Tribune News Network
Doha
THE on-going war in Syria has resulted in one of the biggest international concerns about the use of chemical weapons in recent times.
An upcoming public lecture by Ahmet Uzumcu will focus on the use of this extreme form of warfare and offer added insight into the complexities of prohibiting its use.
The director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will be speaking at Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) building at 6pm on October 23.
The event will be hosted in collaboration with the Qatari Ministry of Defence's National Committee for the Prohibition of Weapons, the body responsible for implementing and raising awareness of international weapons conventions in Qatar. It will focus on the role of the OPCW in prohibiting chemical weapons in Syria, the challenges faced and his predictions for the future.
"Chemical weapons are an on-going threat to safety and security in the region and beyond," said Senior Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research Administration at GU-Q, Dr Kai-Henrik Barth, who helped organise the event."We hope that events such as these can build a greater understanding of the challenges of preventing their use, and help raise awareness of the issue among our students and the wider community in Qatar."
Uzumcu, who has served as director-general of the OPCW since 2010, has a history in international affairs, having previously served as the Permanent Representative of Turkey to the United Nations in Geneva. He has also represented Turkey at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Council, the Conference on Disarmament and other international organisations. In 2013, he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the OPCW.
In a bid to increase familiarity with the conventions related to weapons of mass destruction, the National Committee for the Prohibition of Weapons and GU-Q also recently hosted an awareness workshop, which was attended by students from seven local universities.
