The Deputy Director General for Multilateral and Global Affairs, Ambassador Pedro Oyarce, inaugurated the international seminar on "Biological Material and Biosafety in the Framework of the Implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention."
Along with thanking the institutions related to the organization of the event, Ambassador Oyarce said: "This meeting provides another opportunity for reflection and to share experiences on biological material and biosafety. Thus, these efforts lead to the promotion of the Convention, its effective implementation and universalization."
The event was organized by the Directorate of International and Human Security (DISIN) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with the General Directorate for National Mobilization, an agency under the Ministry of Defense, in cooperation with the Implementation Support Unit (ISU), within the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs and the support of the Toxicological Alert and Information Network (RITA Chile).
The three-day seminar will be attended by prominent national and foreign experts who are related to different aspects of the scientific research and development of the criteria and objectives set out in the Convention, in order to exclude completely the possibility of the use of biological material as weapons of mass destruction.
Chile ratified the Biological Weapons Convention in 1980, reaffirming its commitment to disarmament and international security, an integral part of the national foreign policy. This agreement, which is a technical instrument but with a far-reaching political scope reflects, according to Ambassador Oyarce: "The unequivocal willingness of the international community to establish a non-proliferation regime for weapons of mass destruction. It is a visionary agreement that has so far contributed to the genesis and development of other disarmament instruments," he said.