CAIRO – Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu commended Egypt’s active and influential role in various areas of international multilateral work, including disarmament.
This came during a meeting between Assistant Foreign Minister for Multilateral Affairs and International Security Ehab Badawy and the UN official as part of her current visit to Cairo for bilateral consultations with Egypt.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, according to MENA, that Badawy held extensive consultations with the Under-Secretary-General, during which viewpoints were exchanged on a number of strategic issues related to nuclear disarmament efforts and preventing arms races, taking into account the continuous deterioration in security and stability conditions regionally and internationally and the resurgence of arms races in various strategic fields using various modern technologies.
Ambassador Ehab Badawy expressed Egypt’s great appreciation for the positive role and constructive initiatives put forward by the Secretary-General and the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs to restore and enhance international security and peace, including the complete elimination of nuclear weapons under international supervision and the prohibition of the use of such weapons conflicting with all humanitarian principles under any circumstances.
On her part, the UN official was keen to listen to Egypt’s views on a number of important files currently under discussion, including efforts to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East in light of recent regional developments, efforts and initiatives to prevent an arms race in outer space, and ongoing initiatives and negotiations on combating the use of cyber technologies, artificial intelligence, and autonomous weapons that pose a threat to international security.
In this context, the two sides exchanged views on ongoing efforts to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, including through the relevant annual conference organized by the United Nations, with an emphasis on the importance of Israel’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and subjecting all its nuclear facilities to the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the necessity of expediting the implementation of existing commitments related to the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and the prohibition of their use, and establishing a mechanism for holding nuclear-weapon states accountable for implementing their legal and political commitments in this regard.
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