September 6, 2005

Today’s Conference on Disarmament (CD) session began with the President of the CD thanking the previous presidents for their hard work and contributions this past year. He also thanked Ambassador Meyer of Canada for his suggestion on a new round of talks on the main topics at hand.

The Russian Federation circulated a summary of the August 16, 2005 Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) meeting in which over 50 delegations participated. The summary, an official CD document, is a brief resume of the key points discussed during the open ended meeting. The Russian Federation explained that their final aim was to establish an Ad Hoc Committee on PAROS, and stressed that as of yet, nothing was “cast in stone”.

Iraq gave the President its full support, and thanked all delegations for their condolences regarding the tragedy of the bridge that collapsed last week.

The next CD session is on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2005 at 10:00 am. Immediately following that CD session there will be an informal meeting of the first reading of the draft report.