CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT TO HOLD FIRST PLENARY OF 2006 SESSION ON 24 JANUARY

The Conference on Disarmament, the world's sole multilateral forum for disarmament negotiations, will hold the first plenary of its 2006 session on Tuesday, 24 January, at the Palais des Nations.

The session will open under the presidency of the Ambassador Zdzislaw Rapacki of Poland. The presidency of the Conference rotates amongst its Member States according to the English alphabetical order; each President holds office for four working weeks. During 2006, the presidency of the Conference will also be held by the Republic of Korea, Romania, the Russian Federation, Senegal and Slovakia. The three parts of the 2006 session will be from 23 January to 31 March for the first part; 15 May to 30 June for the second part; and 31 July to 15 September for the third part.

In accordance with its rules of procedure, the Conference "shall adopt its agenda for the year at the beginning of the session. In doing so, the Conference shall take into account the recommendations made to it by the UN General Assembly, the proposals by its Members, and decisions of the Conference."

The Conference at its first plenary will hear from Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Secretary-General of the Conference and the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, who will deliver a statement on behalf of Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

In 2005, the Conference was not able to reach agreement on a programme of work -- the seventh consecutive year during which it was unable to do so -- and so was unable to start work on substantive issues. While there was agreement on most of the elements of a programme, the main differences remained on the matters of prevention of an arms race in outer space and nuclear disarmament.

The provisional agenda of the Conference for 2006 includes the following items: cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament; prevention of nuclear war, including all related matters; prevention of an arms race in outer space; effective international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons; new types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons (radiological weapons); a comprehensive programme of disarmament; transparency in armaments; and consideration and adoption of the annual report and any other report, as appropriate, to the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Member States of the Conference

The 65 members of the Conference are Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal. Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe.

For use of the information media; not an official record

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