Geneva to Host a Joint Conference of Luxembourg Forum and Geneva Centre for Security Policy

On September 11 and 12, 2012, a joint conference of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe and Geneva Centre for Security Policy billed as “Perspectives of Nuclear Proliferation and Disarmament” will take place in Geneva. Leading nuclear disarmament and proliferation experts, who are members of the Luxembourg Forum and other international organizations, will discuss essential international security issues.

The conference will bring together international experts, members of the International Advisory Council of the Luxembourg Forum and other experts, including Luxembourg Forum President Viatcheslav Kantor, former IAEA Director General Hans Blix, Professor at the University of Maryland Roald Sagdeev, Director of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy Fred Tanner, director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research Theresa Hitchens, Head of the WMD and Disarmament Programme at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy Pal Sidhu, and Counsellor of the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Hassan Daryaei.

The conference will focus on perspectives of nuclear disarmament, strengthening of WMD non-proliferation regime, cooperation on ballistic missile defense and its importance for the nuclear non-proliferation in future. As usual, close attention will be paid to the nuclear crises of Iran and North Korea, as well as the current state and perspectives of six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

The conference will be another attempt to find a compromise on most pressing issues of international security and ways for the leading participants of the nuclear disarmament process to jointly address major concerns. The meeting will discuss implementation of the resolutions passed by the recent anniversary conference of the Luxembourg Forum held in Berlin this June 4-5.

“Over the past five years the world has seen dramatic developments in many areas,” the Luxembourg Forum President Viatcheslav Kantor said at the conference in Berlin. “The world has been shuddered by economic crises, military and political environment is characterized by complex turbulence, revolutionary processes in the Middle East and North Africa have significantly altered the political landscape beyond this region as well. All these factors have a direct impact on sustainability of the nuclear non-proliferation regime.”

It is anticipated that as the outcome of the meeting the experts will issue a final document containing their recommendations and specific proposals. The Luxembourg Forum experts prepare such documents following each conference. Nearly all addressees have taken note of the recommendations, as supported by their feedbacks.

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The International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe was established pursuant to a decision of the International Conference on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe, held in Luxembourg on May 24-25, 2007. The Forum’s Advisory Council includes 57 most reputable and world-renowned experts from 14 countries.

The Forum is one of the most representative non-governmental organizations uniting leading world experts on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, arms reduction and limitation. The Forum is headed by its President, Viatcheslav Kantor, PhD. The principal guiding bodies of the Forum are the International Advisory Council (IAC) and the Supervisory Council (SC).

The Forum’s priorities are to analyze threats imposed by nuclear arms proliferation and elaborate actual proposals and recommendations on the ways to further reduce nuclear arms, strengthen nuclear and missile non-proliferation regime, counteract acquisition of nuclear weapons and technologies by unstable regimes and terroristic organizations, resolve the Iranian and North Korean nuclear crises. Reduction of nuclear threats is closely connected to conventional arms balance, development of precision weapons and perspectives of cooperation between states on ballistic missile defense.